Major's Day Out
by T'Pring
Summary: When Sheppard takes Maj Teldy, Lorne and Vega to explore a frozen wraith outpost, Anne is eager to prove herself. When the mission goes sideways and Sheppard is injured, Anne gets a whole new perspective on trust and what it takes to survive in Pegasus.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This story came about rather differently than usual. Frankius17 came to me with a great story idea and a fairly specific outline and asked if I would write to those specifications. I agreed, thinking it would be an interesting challenge to work with characters I might never have thought to explore. In the end, that original outline is still "here" in essence, but got a whole lot added to it, so I thank Frankius17 both for patience (it took me months to get to) and flexibility in letting me adapt that original idea - I hope you like it. Even if the story is not what you imagined, I really and truly thank you for the prompt. I have quite enjoyed getting to know Maj. Anne Teldy.  
_

**Major's Day Out - Story by Frankius17; written by T'Pring**

Major Anne Teldy took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and walked into the ready room as if she weren't a heartbeat from a nervous giggle.

"Majors don't giggle," she told herself, firmly. Not that she was truly prone to such things. As a six year veteran of the stargate program, she had proven herself as both offworld operative and – for the past three years – 'gate team leader. But she'd been on Atlantis for all of three weeks and had already broken two of her hard and fast rules: 1. Never submit to hero worship – your commanders and colleagues are just as human as you are and to put anyone on a pedestal creates the temptation of self-comparison and self-doubt. 2. Never compete with your colleagues – it makes you do stupid stuff and leads to self-doubt. And besides, you're on the _same_ team.

"Good morning, Major!" called Maj. Lorne from in front of his locker across the room. _Damn! He got here first!_ She instantly squashed the feeling of annoyance and repeated rule number two to herself as she dumped her armful of gear onto the bench in front of hers.

"Major," she replied formally. Lorne smiled with an ease that came with confidence and familiarity and she had to fight back a prick of jealousy – she was far from the easiness of Atlantis' 2nd in command.

"You can call me Evan when the boss isn't around. There's few enough of us on this base to stand on formality all the time."

"Thanks, Evan." Offering his name was a respectful gesture, he seemed genuine in doing it. Damn him. Not only was he easygoing and confident, but he was _nice_ too.

"You go by anything other than Major?" Lorne asked a minute or so later, after she'd gotten engrossed in prepping her gear for a quick and organized muster, determined to live up to this unit's high standards. She blushed and rolled her eyes in apology.

"Sorry! God, my head is somewhere else today, Major. I mean Evan. Most people call me Teldy. I've been known to answer to Anne, but I grew up with a pack of brothers and when they call me Anne," she made her voice high and mocking, "I usually end up smacking them."

"I guess I'll stick with Teldy, then," Lorne replied with a chuckle then threw her a sidelong look, "You worried about the mission? 'Cause I'd be happy to answer any questions you have…now?" He was smiling encouragingly and she felt even guiltier for feeling so damn competitive in his presence.

"Not about the mission, really," she answered truthfully, then turned to fidget with her gear. "More worried about the implications."

"Implications?" Lorne seemed genuinely puzzled.

She put down the boot she was holding and turned to give him her full attention. "Is this mission some kind of test? Or…or hazing maybe? Because if Colonel Sheppard thinks he's going to catch me off guard or scare me off," she planted her hands on her hips, "he's mistaken."

Lorne's face went surprised, then thoughtful. "No hazing. I promise," he answered firmly with a grin tugging at his lips. "But, just maybe a test."

Anne's breath hitched with a flare of temper, "What kind of test?"

"Sheppard takes a couple of us senior officers out for a run every quarter or so."

"That often?" She was surprised. The top brass at the SGC pretty much left the gate teams to themselves, offworld. Was Sheppard that much of a control freak? That didn't jibe with what she'd heard about him.

"Yeah. He always says it's just to boost morale, get re-acquainted, that sort of thing. Touchy feely crap. But I've always gotten the impression that he's checking out more than morale."

Anne stepped closer, "So what is he looking for? Performance evaluation? Stress management? Does he expect us to kiss his ass? What?" She blushed again, belatedly wishing she could snatch that last back out of the air. As nice as Lorne seemed, she didn't know him well enough to know if he was the type that would repeat ill considered comments. He just cocked his head.

"There are only four Majors on Atlantis – two to command the Marine units," he pointed at Teldy, "and two to keep the flyboys in line." He pointed to himself. "Seventy-five percent of the time, we're cut off from Earth. Sheppard's in the field a lot, leaving one of us in charge at least three days out of seven. Sometimes more, depending on how exciting Pegasus gets. Any one of us could be called to take command of Atlantis more…permanently in a worst case scenario." Lorne trailed off, letting the familiar mantra of officer preparedness stand as his answer. Anne nodded solemnly. She was familiar with Sheppard's historic year of pulling off that exact scenario. Everyone was.

"So he's looking for command readiness, to see if we're fit for the big chair in an emergency."

Lorne smiled slightly, then shrugged. "Something like that. We call it Major's Day Out. Leave the kiddies behind, you know? You're new, so that's why you're on the list today, but don't feel singled out. We all go out a couple times a year."

He went back to his packing and Anne couldn't help but think he was holding something back. That knot of frustration twisted again and she attacked her own gear with an even more ferocious desire to prove herself to this unit, to Colonel Sheppard and most especially to Colonel Carter. If he wanted command readiness, she'd give him command readiness.

At least the Colonel had picked a mission she felt truly prepared for. She'd grown up in Ft. Greely Alaska, daughter of a Cold Regions Test Center Army Drill Sergeant. She and her brothers knew more about field stripping a rifle wearing cold weather gear than the poor lower 48 schmucks did after a full year of training. She'd been commissioned through the ROTC at University of Alaska and returned to the same program her father had served. When Greely had been repurposed in 2001 and began to report to SMDC in Colorado Springs, Anne had been tapped for the SGC during one of her command briefing visits.

As she stuffed extra pairs of her favorite synthetic wool socks and glove liners into her rucksack, she mused on the advanced technology in her pile that her father would have killed for. She and Lorne were both dressed in one-piece undersuits that resembled wetsuits in color and appearance, although not as tight. The sleek, black fabric was a little stretchy and opened from thigh to chin with a very cool, alien-funky, zipper-like seal. The material was supposed to breathe, but Anne already felt it catching and holding her body heat.

The undersuit was actually the first layer of the space suits they would be wearing on the arctic planet they planned to visit. Anne wasn't sure which race they'd "borrowed" the suits from, but, in combination with the outer layer, it would be completely weather proof (designed to protect in complete vacuum after all), very light and flexible. Anne had recommended leaving the hard-shell helmets behind in favor of ordinary balaclavas and ski goggles.

Captain Vega entered the room a few minutes later and also received a warm greeting from Lorne. Just as Anne was zipping up her pack, Colonel Sheppard, followed closely by Dr. McKay and Colonel Carter poured through the door. Vega and Sheppard were both dressed in the black undersuits, the Colonel looking as fit and lean in the not-tight-but-not-exactly-forgiving clothing as the Captain who was fifteen years his junior.

Anne was definitely not as curvy as the young, dark haired, pony-tailed, Vega, but she took pride in acing her PTs and was pleased that Sheppard – much closer to her own age – didn't seem like one of those top brass types that let themselves go and depended on their juniors to bail them out when things got physical.

"So you'll remember to bring back all the memory crystals you find and download anything in permanent storage into the laptop?" McKay was saying as he hovered at Sheppard's shoulder like some kind of playground pest.

"You want to go instead, McKay?" Sheppard retorted, his tone sharp but his expression light. He jerked his pack up onto the bench and snatched for his shoulder holster out of his locker. "Cause if you don't stop nagging me, I'm dragging you along with_out_ a snowsuit."

"Fine. But if I find out you've blown anything up before I get there, I'll –."

"You'll what?" Sheppard interrupted, suddenly stepping into McKay's space and shoving his 9mm into the holster under his arm with a menacing thrust. McKay didn't flinch.

"Threatened the man wearing grandpa's underwear… I'll think of _something_. This is the first Wraith outpost we've had a chance at since we discovered they know how to create clone armies. Who knows what other interesting historical facts Todd might be keeping from us. We need all the intel we can get."

Anne watched the interplay, while trying not to look like she was listening in. McKay's bad temper and Sheppard's handling of the touchy scientist was legendary on Atlantis.

"I think I've got a handle on the mission requirements, Rodney. I just need to be sure that _you're_ sure the place is deserted."

"Well of course I can't be _sure¸_ sure. Wraith hibernate for centuries, remember? We see no life signs readings, but the outpost is shielded, so we might not see anything even if they were awake."

"Great," Sheppard muttered, returning to his last minute preparations.

"Look, once you get in and turn off the shield and the automated defenses that are keeping the jumpers away, we'll be able to run full sensor scans and provide luxury transportation in and out."

"And while we can't be certain, we do know that no hive ships have approached that planet for the past two years." Colonel Samantha Carter spoke from where she'd propped her back up against a corner of a locker.

Anne was having a hard time not snapping to attention, out of pure excitement. Carter went on, sounding amused, "That, combined with the orbital survey you made and the deteriorated condition of the physical structure of the outpost itself, gives us a pretty good hint that the place is empty. There's no rush on this one. You don't have to squeeze this in right now if you don't want to," she added with an odd quality to her voice that made Anne wonder if there was something else going on.

Sheppard had just returned from personal leave, Anne remembered suddenly. He'd gotten back a week after she'd processed in. She turned to watch him carefully, gauging his response to the hint. If there was something going on that Carter was worried about, then that worried Anne. Sheppard just grinned.

"I know," he answered lightly. "But McKay's right, we could use the intel. We've been watching this place for months. Might as well go clean it out. Besides, Teldy here has been whining to get out of here. Might as well kill both birds - get her signed off for gate duty and use her expertise on this iceball at the same time."

"Hey! I wasn't whining!…sir! I never – ." Anne cut herself off abruptly, but her fists were clenched and she was mortified by the Colonel's implication that she'd acted impatiently – in front of Carter! Carter, however, rolled her eyes and lifted a placating hand. She strolled over to put her shoulder casually next to Anne's locker. Anne threw her a pleading look and Carter chuckled.

"S'Ok, Major. _John's_ the one who's eager to get you into the field and so am I."

"Oh. Thank you, ma'am."

"You settling in?"

Anne couldn't help but grin, finding herself quickly mollified by Carter's casual attention. That was the problem with breaking rule number one. She over-reacted like an idiot. Anne had idolized Carter since the SGC. It was a big enough place that she'd never met the Colonel personally until Carter had greeted her the day she arrived on Atlantis, but the woman's contribution to the legend of SG-1 was as amazing as the team itself. Anne admired her for all the right reasons, and for a few suspect ones: she'd had few women role models in her career and Carter was one she'd felt secure in adopting. Serving directly under her hero was turning out to be both blessing and excruciatingly awkward.

"I'm doing well, yes, ma'am." Anne really hoped she didn't sound too breathy as she tried to talk to Carter like any other soldier. "The facilities are truly beautiful, and I'm impressed with how smoothly things seem to run."

Carter rolled her eyes and leaned close. She shot a mischievous look at Colonel Sheppard as she said, "I admit, it took me a while to get used to Sheppard's style. He's a lot less formal than the SGC and he delegates a lot more than I was used to. But it works, here. I've come to realize how flexible you have to be in such a remote outpost."

"Yes, ma'am!" Anne choked out. She had meant to compliment Carter, but the astute woman had found a way to redirect the praise to her team. As a great leader would.

They chatted more comfortably after that. Anne kept an eye on Sheppard as he worked the room, going to first Lorne, then Vega and quizzing them about their readiness. She overheard him pressing for details about their gear and mission requirements. When he turned in her direction and Carter excused herself (to Anne's disappointment) to tow McKay out of the room, Anne was ready.

"All set, sir," she greeted Sheppard confidently before he got a word out himself. "I'm sure you'll find everything in order." She gestured to her gear and stepped away into an at-ease stance to indicate he was welcome to inspect her gear. He just quirked an eyebrow.

"You're the cold climate expert, Major. I was going to ask you for the lowdown on what to expect and have you check if _I've_ missed anything."

"Oh." She blushed ten shades of red, but found her answer in her pleasure at being valued. "Of course. I've taken the liberty of stripping, cleaning and lubricating all of our hand weapons with LAW, cold temperature lubricant. We'll keep them warm under the outer suit in any case. If they do get cold, just remember they'll sweat for at least an hour once they're brought back into warm conditions.

"I met with Captain Vega and gave her the course on what to expect with her M16." Vega was their security escort and would be the only one carrying heavy ammunition. "I couldn't find any tactical specs on the Wraith stunners we'll be carrying outside the suits during the hike. But I spoke with Dr. Zelenka and he believes that they will function properly within the temperatures we're expecting. They are solid state energy devices, so function shouldn't be affected if they do experience sweating."

"They'll just get damn slippery," Sheppard muttered and Anne raised her eyebrows in indulgent surprise.

"Yes, sir! At the temperatures we'll be in and out of, it will be a real concern. Most people don't really get the idea of cold weapons condensing water like a glass of cold lemonade, sir."

"Not my first sleigh ride, Major," Sheppard retorted calmly with a slight smile.

With a jolt as abrupt as that glass of lemonade in the face, it was only _then_ that Anne remembered Sheppard had spent almost a year in Antarctica. Flying helicopters. I.e. some of the most complicated equipment to maintain in cold conditions. And he had called her the expert? She went stiff and she was sure her eyes were popping, but Sheppard just nodded, looking thoughtful. "All right. Anything else, Major?"

"No sir," she managed to choke out. "All the rest is standard issue. I packed extra socks." She blurted the last, some insane part of her trying to regain an impression of expertise. Sheppard laughed.

"So did I. Get the heavy stuff on and let's head out. McKay says we've got about five hours between storms and I want to be warm and cozy in that outpost well before then."

"Yes, sir."

Anne quickly strapped on her own shoulder holster, settled the 9mm into its pouch and then tugged on the outer suit that would protect them from the extreme elements of PRJ-004. After she'd fastened her boots into the pant cuffs, she remained leaning over her knees for a moment to press her hands into her face.

Between Lorne and Colonel Sheppard she was off to a _great_ start today. Damn. She wasn't one who put too much effort into social pandering, but she did _try_ to keep her foot out of her mouth.

Anne shoved herself to her feet and worked quickly to finalize her gear. She was eager to get back into the field. Out there, the small talk didn't matter. She could just do her job. She didn't need to be best buddies with her commanders and colleagues to know what to do. She was with Lorne on that one – all the touchy feely crap in the universe wouldn't take out a Goa'uld after it had lined you up in its sights. Wait…wraith. Here she had to worry about wraith.

Drawing on her depth of experience for confidence, she zipped up the main suit but left the final flaps open and her headwear and gloves off. They couldn't afford to reach the ice already soaked in body-chilling sweat. She hoisted her backpack and deftly clipped the support straps across her chest. The wraith stunner she would carry outside the suit attached with a clever magnetic clip to her thigh, and then she was done.

She was the first one to the ready room door.

Yes!

(Screw rule number two…)


	2. Chapter 2

"Are we there yet?"

They were more than two hours into the hike across a frozen plain and Lorne's delivery was as petulant as the words. And it was just as funny the fifth time, too, Anne had to admit. Lorne's timing was perfect. Vega cracked up, her snorts of laughter sounding even more comic through the tiny speakers in Anne's ear. Sheppard's reply was also thick with amusement.

"Don't make me turn this car around, Major."

"Isn't it Vega's turn to break trail? Can I have a snack? Teldy is poking me."

Anne stiffened for a second then laughed at herself when Lorne just continued his play-acting.

"I have to pee."

"I told you to go before we left the house," Vega chimed in, joining the nonsense but sounding way too young to pull off the scolding mother routine.

"I didn't have to go _then_…"

They were slogging North over a snowy ice field in single file, looking like wrinkly, anorexic polar bears in their lightweight spacesuits. The outer suit material reminded Anne more of Tyvek house wrap than fabric. She idly wondered how they worked in vacuum conditions – Zelenka had said something about molecular polymer somethings – but she wasn't planning on testing them there any time soon, so she hadn't bothered to figure it out.

A vast plain of endless white spread out in all directions. There was a hint of shadow against the East horizon – mountains of some sort – and a mass of black storm clouds building in the southwest. Other than that, the icefield looked as flat as a rippling white sea. It wasn't until they'd walked up and down a few rolling hills that they realized that there was _some_ variation. A thin, pallid sun was partly hidden behind a permanent film of ice clouds, low on the north-western horizon. It wouldn't set at this latitude in this season of the planet's orbit, but it did make for an annoying glare. Their snow masks were polarized, but Anne still found herself squinting.

Lorne was currently on point and had the hardest job of kicking aside the six to eight inches of powder that sat on top of uneven ice. They'd taken turns breaking trail since leaving the stargate. Anne was still breathing hard from her turn and spent some time concentrating on managing her core temp. The suits helped, but the best protection was to keep yourself from getting hot in the first place. It was better not to sweat than for the suit to try to cool you off.

Sheppard seemed to know this as well, and kept them rotating frequently so as not to tax anyone too long. He also kept the pace slow which seemed to annoy Lorne and Vega, but Anne approved. They needed to conserve their energy as well as their heat. Battles had been lost by showing up too beat to fight. She pulled out a palm scanner from her external pocket and glanced at the readings before returning it again.

"Temp's dropped again, Vega," Anne said with a slight twist to glance at the woman walking behind her. "You'll have to account for ice fog if you end up firing. We all will."

"Got it," Vega replied crisply. Anne checked the scanner again, just as quickly returning it. The display had started to fog up after their first hour on the trail. She was trying to keep the thing warm enough not to freeze over. At least the wraith equipment was working. She'd gotten permission to test the stunners and so far, they were performing as Zelenka had predicted.

"Only another two kliks to the base. We'll reach the edge of the shielded area in one klik," she added.

There was a lull as they each digested the information. Two kliks in this environment was another half hour at least. It seemed like a long time after two and a half hours of slogging already. Ten or twelve swishing steps passed under their boots.

"Are we there yet?" Lorne yelled. Vega busted up.

Twenty minutes and another rotation later, Sheppard was breaking trail and Vega was pulling six when Sheppard waved them to a stop and motioned Anne forward.

"What do you make of that?" he asked. Anne had to blink a few times to digest what she was seeing. About a hundred meters ahead of them, down the slight incline of a circular valley, was a vast white dome. Not a solid dome, exactly. It looked to Anne like someone had taken a ball of fog, cut it in half and set it on the ground.

"The shield?" she answered, thinking it through out loud. "Looks like the ice crystals in the wind are interacting with the shield."

Sheppard nodded, his thick cap and goggles exaggerating the gesture. She could only catch a glimpse of his intense eyes through the polarized glass.

"We caught an aerial picture of the place on a calm day. McKay thinks we'll be able to walk through it."

"Thinks?" Anne was alarmed. She wasn't sure she would have walked all this way if she'd known there was a chance they wouldn't even make it through the shield in the first place. Sheppard must either really trust McKay, or he really had wanted to go for a walk!

"I'll go first," he said in answer.

They approached the shield cautiously and once they were gathered just outside the place where the shield torqued the snow around, Sheppard wrapped his hand around his wraith stunner and turned to address them.

"If I get fried, head back to Atlantis and kick Rodney's ass for me," he ordered lightly. "I'll let you know if it's safe to come on through."

Taking no more time for concern, he raised his stunner and stepped into the shield. It looked for all the world like he was just strolling through the stargate. The swirling fog enclosed around him and he was gone. She, Lorne and Vega waited an uncomfortable minute for something to happen. Upon a closer look, Anne could tell that the shield really was transparent when it wasn't deflecting ice crystals. She could catch glimpses of more snow and what looked like rock in the rare swirls of clarity. Another minute passed, and Vega twitched.

"It didn't _look_ like he got fried," the Captain said at last, sounding sarcastic. An instant later when Sheppard appeared out of the fog like a phantom, she cursed and jumped. Lorne guffawed.

"Anything good in there, sir?" Anne asked, grinning behind her balaclava.

"Yeah, this is the place. McKay was right about communications. Couldn't raise you even from a few feet on the other side. Once we go in, we're out of touch with Atlantis. Vega, mark the spot. We'll send you through with messages if we don't have the shield down before Atlantis checks in in another hour."

"Yes, sir."

Sheppard waved them gallantly towards the shield, the gesture awkward in his bulky suit, "Shall we?"

"After you, sir," Lorne mimicked back. Sheppard pointed a gloved finger.

"Cheeky, Major. Very cheeky." And he disappeared.

The inside of the shield was even stranger. The swirling dome soared over their heads and dipped back to the ground at least three kliks to the other side. Anne could see the pale blue sky through the sparkling, filmy fog, especially at the top where, presumably, the air was clearer of wind-whipped snow. It wasn't as windy as outside, but it was still very cold. A quick glance at her scanner confirmed the temp hovering around -40, Celsius.

The hint of brown she'd seen from outside that she'd thought was rock was, in fact, the wraith outpost. It was also dome shaped, and like Carter had mentioned, it was obviously in disrepair. Even Anne could see that the twisted organic threads that made up the structure were brittle and collapsed in places.

"Needs a paint job," Lorne quipped.

"Yeah," agreed Sheppard. "I'm getting pretty strong power readings – probably the generators keeping the shield on – and some hot spots."

"Hot spots?" Vega shoved closer to peer at the scanner Sheppard was holding.

"There and there." The Colonel poked a gloved finger at the display. "Maybe something's overheating or overloaded?"

"Guess we'll find out," Lorne said, all humor gone. He pulled his stunner off his hip and Anne followed suit. Vega swiped off the cap from her M16's muzzle and shouldered the long weapon. Anne bit her lip, then decided that that was probably OK – there was little wind that might whip ice into the barrel. The shield must have deflected enough of the snow and wind over the ages to keep the place from being buried completely.

They spread out and approached the outpost in a silent wide line. It was farther than it looked. Anne eventually realized that was because the outpost was bigger than she'd expected. Her proportions were all off on the featureless plain. By the time they were close enough to see a yawning dark hole that was certainly an entrance, the roofline towered over them.

Anne dropped her gaze from the strange, tendon-like curves to the ground in front of her.

"Stop!" she shouted abruptly and raised her fist at the same time. The rest responded instantly. "Sir, we've got tracks. Someone has been here. A bunch of someones."

"A bunch?! I don't see any tracks!" Sheppard's voice was high with alarm.

"Or one person a bunch of times. There are grooves in the ice. No footprints since the last snowfall or wind, but there's a path worn from here up to the door."

Anne caught Sheppard scrutinizing the ground, saw him sag with annoyance when he'd confirmed her observation.

"So what do we do?" Vega was combat dancing, shuffling her feet for purchase.

"We don't have three more hours before the next storm. We turn around, we'll be caught an hour away from the gate. So," Sheppard flapped his hand and shook off the heavy outer glove, stuffed it into his pocket. He gripped the stunner wearing only the thin wool liner underneath. "We go in. Maybe they're not home at the moment. Or maybe they're just some wandering locals who won't mind helping out some cold visitors."

Anne didn't think the Colonel sounded too optimistic, but the words were, at least. She followed suit and felt the bite of the stunner's cold surface even through the wool. Without another word, Sheppard waved them forward, into the base, signaling the order he wanted them to enter. Anne was on six so she swept her gaze over the empty plain around the outpost before putting a hand on Vega's shoulder.

"Leave the M16 out here," she said, speaking softly even though her voice wouldn't carry beyond her mask. "It'll sog up fast if it gets anywhere near those hot spots. Out here, you'll know it will at least work on the way home." Vega nodded, eyes wide with understanding. She capped the barrel, and propped it in a little alcove of crumbled wall, hiding it from sight. Anne gave her a thumbs up in approval.

Vega drew her own stunner and stalked in after Lorne. Anne took a deep breath, circled one last time and stepped into the shadows.

The interior was dim and gloomy. Anne rushed past the shadow line, blinded momentarily by the light differential. Almost immediately her mask began to fog and she yanked it off. The warm, moist air trapped under the glass froze and hovered around her head in a cloud of fog. She felt warmer air against the very small patches of exposed cheek.

She took another step and finally had enough visibility to look around. Sheppard, Lorne and Vega also had ripped off their masks and were clumped together, rubbernecking. The entrance led into a wide and high hallway that curved away out of sight in roughly a north-westerly direction. The walls were of the same stringy, rubbery looking stuff the exterior was made of and the dim lighting didn't do much to make the place feel homey. A thin glaze of ice covered every surface, even the flooring.

She took a moment to check her scanner, hoping it was warm enough not to freeze the thing permanently, but not so warm it would fog up even more. She was half lucky. The lights continued to blink and glow, but the screen immediately misted into opaque uselessness. By the way Sheppard was muttering and shaking his scanner, she guessed his had gone foggy, too.

"I think I remember enough to get around," he growled at last. Large puffs of fog accompanied his words and every breath. "We need to check out those hot spots first, then we'll find the controls to lower the shield and defenses."

They followed him warily down the corridor, feeling warmer with every step. Anne knew that they were still below freezing. "Warmer" was relative when one was stepping in from sub-zero. Her cheeks and chin still felt rubbery and numb from the long walk, despite the wool balaclava. The hand around her stunner was stiff.

Only about twenty-five meters around the first curve, Sheppard froze, signaling for high alert. Anne pivoted one shoulder to their six, then planted her feet where she could keep an eye on Sheppard and behind them at the same time. He stalked a meter further, kicked at something on the ground, and relaxed.

"Genii?" Lorne said. Anne scooted a few steps closer. A glance at the figure that had caused the alarm brought her lips into a scowl. The corpse was shoved up against the wall of the corridor like he'd been just kicked out of the way where he'd fallen – a long time ago. The body was frozen and preserved, but there was a leathery hollowness to the skin and joints.

"Can't spit in this galaxy without hitting one of these guys!" Sheppard sounded pissed for some reason.

"Think they're causing the hot spots?"

"I don't know, but this guy wasn't killed by wraith." Anne heard Lorne chuff with disgust. She got it, too, and raised her arm a little higher. "Stay in pairs," Sheppard ordered, waving them on again, "keep your eyes peeled."

Sheppard and Vega took point and Lorne moved back to walk at her shoulder. They moved through the complex for perhaps another twenty minutes. Sheppard took a couple of turns, ignored a couple. Every corridor was curved, and Anne felt like they were in an enormous circular labyrinth. She began silently chanting the turns so she'd be able to find her way back. And with each step towards their destination, it got hotter. Her stunner started to sweat and her gloves were getting damp from the condensation.

Without breaking their slow, cautious stride, Anne unzipped her outer suit just enough to draw the warm 9mm. Lorne raised an eyebrow, thought about it, and did the same, wiping his hand on his pants leg after holstering his own sopping stunner.

Finally, they were at a four way junction and Sheppard paused. Every hallway and junction looked the same to Anne and she was getting a little claustrophobic. In this case, though, the hallway that led to their right was noticeably hot. She could feel a wave of warm air interacting with the cooler air from the other hallways in mini wind currents.

"This is definitely one of those hot spots, sir," Vega said, "Feels like a sauna down there."

"My scanner is still fogged," Sheppard added in disgust. "Lorne, we'll go in obvious. Vega, you and Teldy hang back at the door. Cover our six. If anyone is in there who gets unfriendly, wait for us to make it back to you and we'll regroup. I don't want us split up in this maze."

"Yes, sir," Anne replied at the same time as Vega. They shuffled positions and she returned her attention to their six and followed Sheppard and Lorne down the heated hallway. Before they'd gotten halfway, "warm" had got all the way to "freakin' hot". A trickle of sweat dripped out from under her balaclava and she cursed. Sheppard noticed, to her embarrassment, but he nodded as if she'd made some astute observation and paused.

"Shed some layers, people," he murmured softly and tugged off his own balaclava and gloves. The unwanted accessories went into the inner pockets. They all drew their warmed 9mm and left the still cold stunners on their hips – within reach, but out of bare hands. Sheppard and Lorne scrubbed at sweat soaked and spiky hat-hair, both rolling their eyes in matching expressions of vanity. Vega snorted.

"You'll scare away any hostiles with fashion faux-pas alone, sirs!" Vega quipped, clearly undaunted by the rank she was surrounded by. _Her_ dark, silky pony tail was still tight and sleek.

"Funny," Sheppard retorted, returning quickly to wary stalking, but he was grinning slightly.

Anne placed each step carefully, feeling uncomfortably hot after having adjusted to the cold. The hallway was damp with moisture and the floor was slippery. When it began to widen out and brighten with a soft orange glow, Sheppard moved even more slowly. When they emerged through the door of the large, ferociously hot room, Anne had a hard time keeping her eyes on their six.

Sheppard and Lorne took three or four deliberate steps further into the room, then stopped to take it in. Anne found herself flicking her glance back and forth as she put her shoulder against the doorframe, opposite Vega.

The room spread out immediately from the hall into a huge cavern, lit in the far middle by the strangest bonfire/heater/electric stove Anne had ever seen. It looked like it had been cobbled together from at least three different races' technology. A large iron pot, resembling a huge patio chiminea, sat above a fire pit that burned with just a few red-hot coals. The pot itself was glowing the shimmery orange of extremely hot metal; the inside flickered with an electrical or gas-fire blue.

The strange furnace was clearly what was generating the heat, but what was more surprising was the circle of seven or eight young people sitting cross-legged in a wide circle around it. None of them could have been older than 25, Anne guessed. They were all, male and female, dressed in simple lightweight tunics that exposed bare arms and legs. Anne saw Sheppard exchange a glance with Lorne before he cleared his throat.

"So…Hi!" he called out. The reaction was immediate…but sluggish. All eight jumped to their feet, blinking and grunting – like they'd been asleep, or meditating perhaps. A few drew together, in fear or confusion. Sheppard continued a slow stroll towards the group, his free hand raised and spread placatingly, the hand holding the gun lowered at his side. When they'd drawn close enough for conversation, he stopped and turned just enough for Anne to catch some of his expression.

"Who are you?" demanded the closest man. He was a wild and hairy thing, his beard untrimmed and unbrushed, his hair long, dark and curly.

"My name's Sheppard, this is Major Lorne, Captain Vega, Major Teldy," Sheppard indicated each in turn, waving at her from across the room. "We're not looking for trouble."

"Are you worshipers, too?"

Anne caught another glance pass between the men.

"Sure. Yes. We're here to…worship."

The native looked Sheppard up and down with a skeptical expression, but then pointed in surprise, "You carry the weapons of the beloveds! Were you sent by them? Which Queen do you serve?"

"Oh, crap, they're _wraith_ worshippers," Vega muttered, just loud enough for Anne alone to hear.

"Um, we don't answer to just…one…queen. We sort of really like them all," Sheppard answered lamely, his voice as tight as Vega's.

"You have not been chosen yet, either? Did you come to keep vigil with us? We await the day our beloved rises again," he flicked his eyes adoringly towards the ceiling and Anne followed the glance involuntarily.

"Double crap!" Vega hissed. Anne felt her pulse racing, too. The ceiling of the high room looked like a honey comb with most of the pods darkened, membranes slit and ragged. One of them, however, was still glowing a pale blue, and the faint shadow of a sprawled, humanoid form darkened the intact membrane.

"A wraith hibernation pod," Anne whispered back. She'd read the reports, seen what little video they had of the things. She'd hoped to never see one in person. "Only one looks occupied, though."

"Let's hope it stays occupied."

The worshipper was going on about his _beloveds_, "…we keep the welcoming fire hot to melt the frozen sleep of our Lord. Many began the trek to this outpost, many die on the frozen plain. Those of us who remain will be rewarded greatly for our strength and loyalty."

"Yeah, I'm sure you will," Sheppard answered, not entirely able to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Look, we really just came to look around. See if any…_beloved_ needed our help, stuff like that. Would you mind if we just look around for a little while, wait out the storm and then leave you alone?"

The worshipper was frowning, and several of the others were whispering behind their hands. Anne shifted her grip on her 9 mm, her palms now sweaty in the oppressively hot room. The sooner they got out of here the better. They'd have to cool off before they went outside as it was.

"Who sent you?" the worshipper demanded. "How did you discover this outpost?"

"We heard rumors among the faithful," Lorne piped up earning himself a pleased glance from Sheppard. "Someone said there were Wraith here who might reward followers willing to find it. But we wouldn't want to steal your thunder. We'll just try somewhere else to prove our loyalty. You can keep these guys." He also jerked his head towards the ceiling.

Anne looked away to keep an eye on the hallway and saw a flicker of movement just as Vega stiffened.

"Major?" she whispered, sliding into a firing stance.

"I saw it. We've got friends down the hallway, too, sir," she called loudly enough for Sheppard to hear. Her own arm went up and her feet went solid underneath her. She could almost feel the floor tilting as the scene went ever-so-slightly sideways. The figure she'd seen was peeping towards them, staying just beyond the curve of the hall.

"How is it that you carry the weapons of the wraith without the blessing of a queen?" Behind her, across the big room, the worshipper was going from puzzled to downright cold. Anne spared another glance from the hall to see the man bristling with suspicion. "And carry the weapons of the enemy Genii as well!"

"Genii?" Vega whispered.

"All projectile weapons look alike?" Anne guessed.

"The important part for you to remember is the 'carrying weapons' part." Sheppard's voice went low with warning. He raised his 9mm for emphasis, drew the stunner with his other hand. (The rest of them followed suit) "We mean _you_ no harm. We just came to look around. We'll leave when it's safe to walk back to the stargate. We can be friends during that time, or you can do something stupid and get hurt."

The worshippers around the furnace looked angry, flushed and half-crazy. Anne could only imagine the conditions they'd been living under for who knows how long – going between extreme cold and extreme heat, probably not much food…

"We are no friends of those who would harm the beloveds."

"Then we'll hang somewhere else."

Sheppard took one step backwards without taking his eyes off the worshipper. She should have been watching the hall, but Anne couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen in the room. Sweat trickled off her forehead. She saw the worshipper's eyes go wide with decision. He hissed in passable imitation of the wraith that he idolized…and – surprise, surprise – he lunged.

"Oi Khala oi Reverah!" _My enemy, my Lord!_

The cry of the worshippers rose in a keening wail. Sheppard's stun blast stopped the lunge before the man made it two steps. Lorne dropped another that had moved forward, and the rest scattered like ants – around the fire or towards the edges of the room. The first round of return fire zipped past Anne's shoulder from the direction of the hallway. The surprise lasted only a second to be replaced with satisfaction after she spun, sighted and dropped the worshipper in the hallway in a single smooth motion. The Genii handgun he'd fired clattered to the ground along with his unconscious body.

Vega pinched off another blast from her stunner and a second worshipper fell into the hallway. They both had to duck into the room, though, when a barrage of wraith stunner fire splattered against the walls, pinning them down. Damn it! These guys had both stolen Genii AND stolen wraith weapons to back up their psychosis!

Behind her, one of the scattered worshippers had gotten to a cache and a splattering of shotgun fire drowned out the continuing keens of the worked up defenders. Anne pumped out several rounds from her stunner thinking that firing the damn slippery thing was like trying to play cops and robbers with a bottle of beer on a summer day. She was sweating like the proverbial under her suit, and her collar and waistband were already soaked and sticky. When she was convinced the targets in the hallway had ducked she risked a glance over her shoulder.

Sheppard and Lorne had taken cover behind a console to one side of the room that probably controlled the wraith's sleeping chambers. Three more worshippers were sprawled on the ground, unconscious, but Lorne and Sheppard were pinned down by the remaining three that had hidden themselves amid the clutter of the room. A constant patter of Genii and wraith fire zipped towards them leaving sparks against the console. They were a good 45 meters away, and not getting any closer.

It was a stalemate, and not one in their favor. Oh, they could hold out against the firepower as long as they needed, but they were all dressed in cold weather gear and the temperature of the room was against them. Anne was sweltering and Vega was looking a little pale, her face shiny with perspiration.

Another few bolts came at them from the hallway and Vega again pushed them back behind the turn. The Captain's easy success gave her an idea. She signaled for Vega to continue cover fire, indicating her intention to leave her position. Vega looked startled, opened her mouth for an instant, then snapped it shut. Another volley drew her attention and Anne crept away from her corner during the distraction, unnoticed by any of the worshippers.

With one last glance to be sure Vega was holding her own, Anne slipped along the wall of the roughly circular room, in the opposite direction of Sheppard and Lorne. She'd marked the position of the enemy positions in the cavern by sound, but it still took her a moment to locate the closest worshipper. The wild-looking woman was hunched down behind an overturned table that dripped candle wax, a few wicks still sputtering on the ground in front of it.

Anne sighted carefully, pulling deeper into shadows along the wall. When the worshipper popped up to shoot her stunner at Sheppard across the room, Anne fired. The woman crumpled, tipping the table forward as she fell across it. Anne was already another 25 meters further around the room, almost directly opposite Sheppard with the furnace between them, before the remaining hostiles could figure out what had happened to their companion.

Ha! _And_ she was almost directly behind one of the last guys, still undetected. She sighted carefully, fingers slipping on the still sopping stunner, and dropped the worshipper where he stood with a single pulse in the back. She was just considering which way to go next, when the radio in her ear crackled to life with a sharp yelp.

"Fire in the hole!"

Anne dropped to the floor without even thinking. Te grenade blast shattered the thick heat of the room with an eardrum-popping bang. She threw her hands over her head and just hoped that wherever the grenade had landed she was far enough away to avoid the shrapnel. That was the first moment she started to think she might be out of position. She lifted her head and caught a glimpse of Sheppard and Lorne dashing along their wall towards the exit – and then she was sure she was.

"Shit!"

She scrambled to her feet, pelted towards the hallway hoping to get there at the same time as the men. A low rumble preceded another crash, this one deep and threatening. Anne stumbled and then fell, feeling the ground shudder under her hands when she pushed upright again. A glance at the furnace confirmed her fear – the glowing iron pot had fallen off its seating to lie on its side, a molten glob of disaster-waiting-to-happen. The internal light was sparking and flickering with very unhealthy-looking flares of flame.

The heat in the room went from oppressive to scorching. A few scraps of paper and old dried wood strewn about the furnace began to smolder and then flare into flame. Just ahead of her, Sheppard and Lorne pulled up next to Vega and even from 25 meters away, Anne could see the Colonel count heads, stiffen and swing his gaze back into the room.

"Teldy! Where the hell are you?" he yelled in her ear through the radio.

"25 meters on your left. Be there in a second, sir!"

Sheppard waved Lorne and Vega into the entrance where they soaked the hallway with cover fire and began pushing their way out of the room. Sheppard put his back to the exit and his eyes on the room, waiting. For her. _Double shit_.

The last ten meters felt like ten kliks. When she skidded up to the doorway, the sound of the battle in the hallway assaulted her already tingling ears and she flinched slightly, distracted. Sheppard didn't spare her a glance. His face was dripping with sweat and his cheeks were an alarming splotchy red, but he remained completely focused on the room. A single spark was all the warning she got.

Sheppard lunged and shoved her into the hallway. The second bullet that would have gone through her ears sank into the wall instead. A few more rounds nipped at their heels as some last determined worshipper tracked their dive into the corridor. Sheppard was still pushing her on from behind, so she didn't think much of it at first when he suddenly jerked hard on her suit with both hands.

A gutteral "Aaaah!" followed the tug and Anne twisted to see Sheppard struggling to get his feet back under him. One leg was twisted out to the side and he was fighting to push himself upright with the other.

Heart pounding, Anne ducked and snatched for Sheppard's arm, threw it over her shoulders and heaved, steadying him enough to continue down the hall. An ominous boom echoed in the room behind them, and the enemy gunfire ceased abruptly.

"I think…we should…go faster," Sheppard panted as the walls began to rumble with whatever protest the furnace was making.

"Yes, sir," was all she could get out.

Lorne and Vega were just ahead at the intersection, standing over two stunned worshipers. They both glanced back and pulled almost identical double-takes as Anne and Sheppard emerged into the cooler air.

"Sir?!" Lorne exclaimed, his face immediately twisted in concern. Anne didn't want to think about what he might be seeing that she couldn't. She only felt the taller man's weight leaning more and more heavily upon her shoulders with each passing second.

"Move!" she bellowed on Sheppard's behalf. "That furnace is about to blow!"

Vega ducked under Sheppard's other arm and they made tracks away from the warm hallway into the cooler sections of the outpost. Perhaps 30 seconds after they'd crossed the intersection, a muffled explosion shook the ground at their feet and the hallway behind them collapsed into a pile of rubble and ice.

Lorne turned into a niche in the hall and signaled Anne to take Sheppard inside. The nook was a small room with a slimy, tendon-covered bench jutting out of the wall along one side. Anne and Vega lowered Sheppard onto the bench then tugged his rucksack off. Anne stepped back, shaking from head to toe.

The Colonel sagged against the wall and grabbed his right leg, his eyes squeezed tightly shut and his lips pursed into an "O" as he panted through his mouth. Anne slapped for her own rucksack buckle and slid the pack to the ground, grabbing for the zipper to the first aid pocket before it hit the ground.

"Sir?" she started, but didn't know how to finish.

"Took some…took some fire," he breathed, clutching at the thigh even harder and leaning into himself.

"Hell," she heard Lorne mutter softly from his sentry post by the door.

Anne added her own curse to the sentiment, feeling a helpless sense of dread as the full reality of the situation slammed into her: They were in a damn wraith worshipper's sanctuary with a storm on the way and who knew how many of the freaks wandering around, ready to sacrifice all of them to their slumbering deities on sight. And Sheppard was down.

And that part was her fault.

Anne trembled harder, but clenched her jaw and stepped close. "Let's take a look, sir. Get you patched up," she managed, fighting the momentary panic.

Sheppard took a deep shuddering breath and leaned back with a groan, the relaxation an act of will rather than any indication of comfort. He cracked his eyes open and peeled his hands away from his thigh to look at them. Anne sucked in a sharp breath, bit her lips together.

His palms were glistening with red.


	3. Chapter 3

"Sir, we need to get your leg elevated and a dressing on that wound." Anne had nothing but training to fall back on. She dropped to her knees and began gently tugging at the fabric around Sheppard's leg to get a clue as to what lay underneath. The outer thigh was smudged, but seemed intact. She nudged his knee to the side and bit her lip again when a large, ragged, and bloody tear on the inside thigh was revealed. Sheppard glanced at the smeared fabric and nodded his head in a wide gesture of agreement – and then promptly contradicted himself.

"No, _we_ need to find a secure position, then find and lower the defenses so Atlantis can send jumpers. Lorne?" He was struggling with his pocket and finally pulled out the hand scanner.

"Yes, sir?" Lorne answered from where he stood guard at the door to the tiny room.

"Take the scanner, for all the good it will do you. Take Vega, check the area and find a secure place for me to hunker down, then you'll have to take out the shield by yourselves."

The Colonel was thinking straight, but his breath was fast and he looked pale to Anne's eye. The blood around the tear was worrying her. She rummaged in her pack for the field dressings and rest of the first aid gear.

"Sir, you shouldn't move again until we stop the bleeding."

"That's what I meant, Major," Sheppard replied softly. "Teldy will patch me up while you look."

"Yes, sir," Lorne responded quickly, throwing Anne a stern look. "Take good care of the Colonel. Have him ready to go when we get back."

"Right." She tried hard to sound as confident as she was worried. She turned to Sheppard even before Lorne had waved Vega out the door with him. "Unzip your outer suit, sir. You've got a nice gouge in the back of your leg."

"I had figured that part out, Major," Sheppard groused, but he complied meekly to her directions once the others were gone. Anne grew more worried as she observed his shaky hands. When he pushed the outer suit off his shoulders and wrestled his arms out of the sleeves, his teeth chattered for a second before he chuffed in frustration and took a deep breath to prevent any more.

"It's colder here than that damn furnace room," she said for something to say and to maybe make him feel better about shivering. "We all got too hot to be good for us. Lie down so I can pull the suit off."

He did, but threw her a hairy eyeball just to show he wasn't happy about it. They wrestled for a moment to get his boots unclasped and she yanked the pants by the ankles with little courtesy. Sheppard grunted each time his leg moved. When he was finally undressed enough, she snatched up the scissors she'd already unpacked and snipped gingerly around the torn undersuit. The whole thigh was soaked with blood, and long rivulets of the stuff trailed down his leg in sticky stripes. She cut open a long slit, but left enough fabric intact behind the knee to keep the lower pant leg pulled up for warmth.

Torn fabric, torn flesh. She swallowed hard at her first look at the wound. It wasn't a simple puncture, in and out. It was a ragged tear, about three inches long, from just above the knee, ripping towards his groin, starting shallow and burrowing deep into muscle. Anne probed gently with fingers still cold despite the latex gloves she'd donned. Sheppard grunted again and slapped his hands over his face. The bullet was still in there, too deep to dig out. Crap.

"You've got quite a hole, sir," Anne said at last, flapping open a field dressing. She kept talking to distract him. Applying the bandage and pressure would hurt like a bitch. She was surprised he was as calm as he was because it probably already hurt like a bitch. "Angle is strange and the wound is ragged. Looks like a ricochet from one of the rifles got you. Which is good, I suppose."

"Good?" he snapped, then hissed as she slapped the wide pad over the still heavily seeping wound.

"Good that it was a ricochet, I mean. If one of those bullets had gone through directly, it would have blown off half your leg on its way back out. As it is, it had lost a lot of its momentum when it hit you."

Anne braced herself, and then cinched the bandage she'd been wrapping all the way around his thigh – tight. Sheppard growled and sputtered, but didn't cry out at the painful pressure. She waited til he could relax again, and then went on. "The downside is, it was probably pretty smashed up, too. Tore up a lot on its way in. We need to keep a very close eye on the bleeding and avoid moving you too much. There's potential for the ragged edges to jiggle around in there and saw through more tissue."

She tightened the bandage one last twist, earning another grunt.

"How about not doing _that_," he gasped, his pale complexion going grey with the pain. "Thought…you said…not to move things around down there."

Anne snorted, forcing herself to sound confident, "That part's necessary risk to stop the bleeding. Buck up, Colonel."

"Your bedside manner needs work, Major. I'm putting that on your annual revue," he panted grumpily.

The comment jolted her stiff. She fussed with the bandage, packed away the scissors and fumbled for the field dose of morphine in her pack. She'd volunteered to be the team medic, so her medical kit had a few extras, but nothing in there could fix the spectacular screw-up that had led to the injury in the first place.

"Sir, I apologize," she began with careful formality. "What happened back there –."

"Now is not the time, Major," Sheppard interrupted softly, but firmly. A shudder clattered his teeth together, and this time he just rode it out.

"Yes, sir," she managed. "I have morphine. Shall I…?"

"No," he answered just as firmly. "No. You need me as cooperative as I can be. If it comes down to it, I _can_ walk. Morphine knocks me out." He attempted a manly expression and added, "I can handle the pain."

"We'll see," she muttered before thinking, then blushed.

"You don't think so?" he snapped.

"I think I've seen injuries like this and it gets pretty…owchie."

"Owchie?" His face went indignant.

"Yeah. I can sympathize."

"Oh, really? You ever had your leg split open by a flying pop top?"

"No. You ever had a bikini wax?"

He glared for a full three heartbeats…then chortled until he coughed.

"Touché."

She made Sheppard prop his feet up against the wall at the end of the bench, then thought for a moment, trying to decide what to do next. The truth was, she was worried as hell. She was no doctor, but she did know that the fractured bullet was very close to the femoral artery. She was pretty certain it wasn't compromised – he would have bled out already if it were – but if the bullet moved… There was a reason she'd saved the powdered coagulant for later.

Sheppard had closed his eyes and was lying quite still, blowing out quick breaths now and then to control pain. After another press of her fingers into his neck, Anne decided to wait on starting an IV (she only had two units, and didn't want to risk wasting any during the upcoming transition).

Lorne had said to have him ready to go, so she handed him the suit, helped him tug it on to the waist without getting up and then made him put his feet back on the wall, this time with his boots on. She had just put her med kit back in her pack when Lorne and Vega burst into the tiny room, panting and urgent.

"Let's go. We've got trouble on our six, heading this way," Lorne snapped.

Sheppard was off the bench, and had his arms in the suit sleeves and his 9 mm in his hand before Anne had hoisted her own pack.

"Vega, get my pack," he snapped, limping towards the door.

"You're with me, sir," Anne snapped with a glower at Lorne, and grabbed for Sheppard's arm without waiting for his approval. "Vega, take the Colonel's other arm. We'll go faster that way and the Colonel needs to avoid moving his leg as much as possible."

"Yes, ma'am," Vega looked amused, as if daring Sheppard to countermand the order.

"Fine," he grumbled. "Lorne, lead the way."

They hurried into the hallway and quickly found their stride, Anne and Vega walking in unison and Sheppard hopping between them. There was none of the lethargic weakness Anne had noticed as Sheppard rested, but she kept an eye on his complexion which still hovered from pale to grey. Lorne updated them as they walked.

"There are about a dozen worshippers still around. They either got out of that room before it blew, or there was another group hanging around at the other hot spot. We've run into four groups that are searching the complex room by room. The one back there hadn't spotted us yet, but they were heading your way."

"You…find…the shield…controls?" Sheppard asked, between each hop.

"Not yet. Our guess is that the generators are in the center of the complex. We tried a couple of consoles we bumped into and they were dead. We may have to turn the generator and the electronic jamming equipment off at the source."

"Turn them off?" Anne questioned wondering how they'd expect to find working consoles at the source any more likely than anywhere else.

"He means blow them up," Vega clarified.

"Oh."

"McKay's going to kill me," Sheppard muttered. "All right. Do you think you can work your way to the source?"

"Yes, sir," Lorne and Vega answered firmly, but Anne caught Lorne's worried glance back at the hopping Sheppard. The Colonel was quiet for a few meters. Lorne lead the way with steady competence, pausing at intersections and waving them forward when the path was clear.

"Where we going?" Sheppard asked at last.

"Back towards the entrance. I spotted a room on the way in that has a door. You should be able to lock yourselves in and avoid wandering freaks."

Sheppard didn't answer and Anne wondered what the Colonel was thinking. She knew _she_ was thinking that an operation as tough as navigating an outpost full of hostiles would be better with four than with two. Frustration and anger flared. The whole damn mission was going south because of her mistake, and Sheppard's life hung in the balance. Not immediately – he was holding his own at the moment – but his getting home depended on getting that shield down.

It got colder again, the closer they got to the outer rooms. Their breath started steaming in front of their faces and Anne's nose and ears were feeling numb again by the time Lorne turned into a shadow of the stringy walls and disappeared. Anne followed and realized that the shadow was really the half-open doorway to a completely darkened room. Lorne shook on a chemical lamp and the opening began to glow with blue-white light.

She and Vega angled Sheppard through the narrow opening and Lorne had added another chemical light and a flashlight to make the small room tolerable. It was very similar to the one they'd just left, this one a bit bigger with two benches on either wall and something that might have passed for a Wraith personal desktop computer rising on a pedestal in the center.

"Oooh! Wraith coffee-break room," Vega quipped looking around as they angled towards one of the benches. For some reason, Sheppard shuddered at the comment, but said nothing. Lorne looked into all the corners, then began poking at the wall beside the door with his knife.

"You'll need to fuss with the controls, Teldy, to get the door open and closed. I'll show you what to do since the automatic sensors are out. That will work to your advantage; make it harder for anyone you don't want to get in."

"No," Sheppard snapped, then hissed as he sank onto one of the benches. "Teldy goes with you. I'll be fine here by myself."

Anne froze in surprise from where she was crouched at her pack again.

"Sir? That's not a good idea, you need someone to keep an eye on that wound and you're in no shape to fight if -"

"That's an order, Major," Sheppard snapped and Anne clamped her jaw shut, felt her own eyes flashing. The Colonel was looking annoyed for first time in Anne's experience. "Just because I'm not up to walking, doesn't mean I'm out of the picture, Major. You know as well as I do that taking out that shield is a lot more important than babysitting."

He stared her down and she glared right back. She could glimpse his logic, but she was torn between a furious desire to keep an eye on him and her intellectual understanding that killing the shield was more important to his well-being in the big picture. Big picture won out, but she decided not to be happy about it.

"Then I'll start an IV before I leave and check the bandage one last time." Each word left a puff of crystal fog in the air, so she added, "And you probably will need to suit up to avoid chilling. It's at least ten below in here."

Sheppard fidgeted while she inserted and taped down an IV port from the med kit into the crook of his arm. The bandage around the gunshot wound was completely soaked through, but Anne saw no new rivulets of blood escaping out the bottom, so she just wrapped another one around the first and made him zip the suit all the way to the neck. The tubes from the small bag of saline snaked into the sleeve with his arm from where it lay balanced on his shoulder.

Again, she was surprised at the man's endurance. He was pale as a ghost and the damaged leg still looked like a hunk of raw meat. She'd handled guys with far less severe injuries who'd been reduced to useless whimpering, and she'd never blamed them. It took a lot of tolerance and…courage to sound as confident as Sheppard was managing.

"Satisfied?" he asked once he was lounging on the bench in full outer gear.

"Not very," she admitted. "If something goes wrong and you lose consciousness or if you're discovered –."

"I'll be here when you get back, Major," Sheppard interrupted her again. His face and his voice went very hard, "Trust me."

He let the words sit in the cold air then waved towards the door. "Go on, scram. Come back when the shield's down."

Anne obeyed, because that's what she'd been trained to do. It was the hardest order she'd ever followed to stand behind Lorne and watch her C/O, mission leader and hero of Atlantis, limp to the door and shut himself in, wounded and alone in hostile territory. Her mind was only half on the hallway ahead of her as she jogged behind Lorne and Vega towards the center of the complex.

The second time Lorne had to speak a command he'd signaled, he put Vega on point and fell back to lean into her face.

"What the hell's wrong, Teldy?"

"I think it was a bad idea to leave the Colonel alone, Major." She decided to be blunt, justified in her concern.

"Sheppard's no coward, but he's no fatalist either. He wouldn't have said he could handle it if he didn't think he could." Anne could have said that him _thinking_ he could handle it might be the problem. "You need to trust him, Anne. You need to trust all of us if you're going to survive in Pegasus."

"I trust you!" she snapped, angry that both Sheppard and Lorne seemed to be questioning her loyalty at a time when she was trying her damnedest to prove it.

"Do you?" Lorne asked, shaking his head. He gave her a disappointed look, then quickened his steps to return to point. "Sheppard is trusting us to lower that shield, Major. Get your head back on task or turn around."

"Yes, sir," she responded, coldly. She was careful to stay alert after that; it was easy to direct the seething shame and anger into ferocious concentration. When they startled a group of three ragged, wild-eyes worshippers at an intersection, Anne was the first to call the alarm and the first to fire her stunner. They fell into a limp heap before they'd raised their own mis-matched collection of weapons.

Lorne took the wraith stunner and the two stolen Genii handguns, and left them where they fell.

"They'll just wake up and try again," Anne grumbled once they were on the move again.

"Yeah, but their supply of weapons won't hold out long," Lorne answered softly, unconcerned. "We'll let Atlantis figure out what to do with them later. I'm sure that shield protects from the elements as much as it does enemies. Once we drop the shield, this place will become unlivable pretty damn quickly."

They jogged in silence for another twenty minutes at least, guessing the pattern of the perpetually circling corridors as they went. After a while, the arcs started getting tighter and the turns more frequent. Anne was thinking they surely must be very near the center of the dome when they came to a wide, pie shaped, courtyard-like room strewn with ragged cots, blankets and primitive camp stoves. It was clearly a living center of some kind (mercifully empty at the moment), but even the chill of the persistently cool outpost couldn't mask the odor of poor health and hygiene.

"Not that it's a great place to live, now," Vega muttered to herself, wrinkling her nose as they skirted a chamber pot.

"Lorne, this is Sheppard. Come in."

Anne heard the call, too, and tensed, immediately. She couldn't help but assume the Colonel was calling for help.

"Go ahead," Lorne replied, hurrying through the sad accommodations.

"I got the console in here working. Think I might be able to help a bit."

Lorne faltered over a step in surprise, "Really? How'd you do that?"

"Rigged the power supply from my stunner into the pedestal. It won't last long, but it's enough to juice the system for a peek. Where are you?"

"Cool, sir! We're almost there, I think. Architecture is getting curvy. Just passed through a large room with three hallways."

"OK. I have a map but no sensors. There are three rooms like you described. All of them circle the inner command chambers like a donut. Take the exit at the apex of the room, and follow the hall til you find a really wide door. You'll probably have to hotwire it open."

"Got it!" Lorne immediately changed course, backtracking towards the exit Sheppard had described. That intel alone had probably saved them minutes of wandering in circles and trying exits at random.

"Any chance you could just turn off the shield from there?" Anne blurted, then almost slapped herself. Of course he would have tried that.

"The defense systems are encrypted and firewalled from here. I've got Rodney's tablet working on it, but it's unlikely. I'll keep digging, though. Something might be useful." He didn't sound annoyed, just resigned.

"Who needs McKay when we've got Dr. Rodney Sheppard on the job!" Lorne joked happily.

"Insults are uncalled for," Sheppard groused. "I'll let you know what I find. Sheppard out."

"I bet he's downloading the outpost's database, too," Vega said with a wide grin for Lorne and Anne alone. "He just doesn't want McKay to make good on that threat he made in the ready room!"

"That and we need the intel, Captain. The Colonel is not one to toss aside mission objectives just because we hit a snag. You spend as much time in the field as he does, you learn to improvise and use every skill you've picked up along the way."

"Yes, sir!" Vega replied just as happily, her voice thick with admiration.

They eased their way into the hallway that Sheppard had described and picked a direction at random to follow. They were quiet and alert again and Lorne moved forward with slow deliberate steps. It wasn't as cold as the edges of the complex, but it wasn't warm either. The hallways were slick with moisture again and curved in a tight arc – circling the central room she now knew.

About halfway around the circle, Lorne raised his fist, signaled her to watch their six then waved Vega forward. The two worshippers who had been standing guard at the door to the control room fell without knowing what had hit them. Lorne stripped them of their weapons and jammed his knife into the wall. Anne probably wouldn't have even recognized it as a door if she hadn't been looking so hard for it. The stringy flexible material looked just like the stringy stiff material of the wall.

Lorne must have had practice at cutting open wraith doors, because it took him only about 90 seconds before the thing unfolded open like some weird bat-wing. She and Vega flanked the opening and stepped through together, sweeping their eyes quickly around the room beyond. Lorne followed after she'd called the all clear.

The room was obviously what they were looking for. Three darkened screens hung from the ceiling and there were at least five consoles jutting out of the ground like technological mushrooms. The lighting was much brighter than the dim hallways and Anne looked up at the high ceiling. The entire roof of the room was aglow with liquid blue light that flickered behind a crystal sheet.

"Think that's the shield generator?" she asked when Lorne and Vega also looked up and gaped. Lorne nodded, touched his earpiece.

"Sheppard, we're in the control room. Looks like it's built under the shield generator itself. Any ideas on the best way to take it out?"

Sheppard's reply was reassuringly quick, but Anne frowned at the breathy quality of his voice, "The defense generators make their own power, which is probably why they're still working even though the rest of this place has gone to hell. The good news is, you damage any part and the rest will go with it. The bad news is it will probably make a hell of a boom when you damage the power supply. You'll want to be as far away as you can get before it goes."

"C4 and timers, then," Lorne agreed. "Does it look like we'll get what we want if we put some charges on the ceiling of this room?" He was still looking up at the glowing window.

"Affirmative. But don't be conservative. It's a big generator. You want enough damage for critical mass."

"Got it."

"Pull as many memory crystals as you can before you blow the room. There's a central data bank somewhere in there."

"Yes, sir." Lorne threw a big grin at Vega. "We'll let you know when we're on the move again. Lorne out."

Lorne shrugged off his backpack and began pulling out C4 and timers. He put Vega at the door and Anne was sent to gather the memory crystals. By the time she found the unit that was probably the central data bank, Lorne was improvising a bomb out of a glob of C4 bricks and wiring detonators into a single timer. It was important for the whole thing to go at the same time.

Anne unzipped an empty pouch in her pack and began pulling out anything that moved from the wraith computer. Her pack was soon full to the brim.

"That should keep Dr. McKay off the Colonel's back," she announced and situated the pack again on her back.

"Good. Come help me hop up on this console to see if I can reach the ceiling. Then we'll –."

Lorne was interrupted by a blast of gunfire from the doorway and Vega's shout.

"They've gathered in the hallway! At least six of them! Maybe more." A barrage of bullets sparked on the doorframe and Vega ducked into the room. During the next lull, she popped out again and pumped several rounds of her stunner into the hall. "They're staying around the bend. I can't get them!"

Anne rushed to the door and added her own return fire to Vega's. A bullet ricocheted off the floor and sank into the doorframe by Anne's shoulder.

"Hold them off while I set the charges!" Lorne yelled.

Anne saw him scramble on top of the tallest console before another exchange required her full concentration down the hall.

"Once Lorne sets the timer, we'll need to get out of here, fast," Anne muttered to Vega during the next lull. A sudden idea struck and she was about to signal a command when a dizzy feeling of déjà vu froze her in place. This felt too much like before – she and Vega holding the door while they waited for Sheppard and Lorne… Sheppard had paid the price the last time.

Vega pushed the worshippers back while Anne remained locked in indecision. Last time…she'd left her position to get the enemy off Sheppard's back. Because Sheppard was pinned down. Because he couldn't make it to the exit without help, she'd thought.

_But he _had_ made it!_

The insight slammed into her and she flicked an involuntary glance back at Lorne in wonder. _You need to trust him, Anne. You need to trust all of us. _Before, she'd left her post in the furnace room because she hadn't trusted Sheppard to do what he'd said he would do: make it back to the exit if things got sticky. When he had done exactly what he said he would, she was out of position.

Despite the fuckup, Sheppard still needed her to help Lorne take down the shield.

"Vega, this hallway runs in a circle right?"

"Pretty much," the Captain gasped out after pinching off another round of fire. Only one of the worshippers pressing in on them had fallen so far. There were still at least five back there.

"Can you hold them back while I go around and catch them from behind?"

Vega's eyes went wide with surprise, then her lips twitched into a wicked grin.

"Yes, ma'am. Signal me when you've got them in the crossfire."

"You got it."

_This_ was why Sheppard had sent her. This was why he'd taken the risk he had by staying alone. It would take all three of them, working together, to get out of that control room in time to get ahead of the C4 blast. "Cover me."

Anne took a deep breath, feeling a surge of confidence…and adrenaline. She nodded to Vega who stepped out into the hall with a stunner in each hand and pumped the hallway full of blue fire. Anne slipped around the doorframe and ran like a rabbit around the curve in the opposite direction.

Those worshippers were persistent, but they weren't particularly tactical. Anne also drew two stunners (the spares taken from the worshippers themselves) and slowed only slightly to continue on around. She warily passed two doors that opened into other courtyards and found herself almost back where she'd started before she knew it, this time _behind_ the bad guys.

Just ahead, the group of worshipers were crowding and jostling together, taking turns firing at Vega. Anne heard the reassuring hum of Vega's return fire and pressed herself against the inside curve. She tapped her radio and whispered, "I'm in position. Give me five after I draw their fire, then come at them with all you got."

"Got it!"

Anne flexed her cold fingers around the grip, forced herself to relax, then she took a huge step forward.

Two went down. The rest jumped, spun and backpedaled, forcing Anne to pursue. She got a third and twitched when a bullet whizzed past her shoulder so close that she could swear she felt the breeze. The last two had better reflexes and were avoiding her shots by using the curve of the wall. She saw the larger of the two worshipers draw bead on her head and she lunged across the hall into a roll.

When she came up on her knee she almost had a heart attack when she saw both of them tracking her movements, just waiting for her to stop moving. She flung up her stunner, dropped the first and then startled when the second lunged abruptly right at her. The ragged worshipper stiffened and crumpled, caught in the back by a shot from Vega.

Anne swept the hallway with the stunner, sweat trickling down her cheek again from exertion and excitement. Footsteps pounded towards her and she braced herself, ready to fire. When Vega and Lorne appeared around the curve, she slumped against the wall in relief.

"Six…seven…eight!" Vega was counting cheerfully. "More than I thought!"

"Great," Anne muttered, then threw a look at Lorne. "Charges set?"

"We've got five minutes," he confirmed looking grim. "Let's go. Sir, we're on the move. If you know any shortcuts back to your location, we'd love to hear them." He addressed the last into his radio, but waved them back into the outpost without waiting for the answer.

They'd jogged along two or three hallways before Anne realized Sheppard still hadn't replied.

"Colonel!" she called loudly into her own headset, worry speeding her pace as the delay brought a spike of fear into her chest.

"Yeah, here. I'm here. I'm good." Even Vega flicked her a startled look at the raspy pant in Shepard's voice. "Dozed off for a second."

"Sir, you need to lie down and elevate your legs. Has the bleeding increased?"

"No, no worse than before. You needed directions?"

The last sounded almost like Sheppard as his usual confident self, so Anne didn't press, but she could tell they were all hustling from more than fear of the blast. More rooms and corridors slid by and she really hoped they were actually moving away from the central rooms – this place was a maze of circles and it felt like they were going _around_ more often than _out_.

"One minute," Lorne called, obsessively checking his watch. They broke into a run.

Sheppard was guiding them turn by turn, now, which let them move without debating the route. At last, Anne thought she was beginning to recognize the halls they were running through. They been in these areas a couple times already. She'd be able to find her way to the coffee-break room (as Vega had dubbed Sheppard's hideout) on her own if she had to.

"Ten seconds!"

Lorne pulled up, and dropped into a duck and cover position against the wall. She and Vega followed suit. Her breath sounded noisy and ragged in the heavy seconds of waiting. When the blast came, the floor shook hard enough to rattle her teeth. The initial boom was followed by a louder and even more frightening rumble. Debris sprinkled down on them and they were plunged into total darkness.

"Great," she heard Vega mutter – a phantom voice in the nothingness at her shoulder. "This will be fun with flashlights. Not creepy at all."

Just as it was dawning on her, that – duh – maybe she _should_ start getting out her flashlight and stop just sitting around for something to happen, dim lighting flickered back on with a gloomy glow and their radios crackled into life.

"I got emergency lights back on."

_Sheppard_!

Anne was beginning to understand the legend around Atlantis's Lt. Colonel. In the space of one short mission, she'd seen him handle a sticky combat situation _and_ serve as primary technical agent. The man was a hell of a field operative.

"Thanks, sir!" Lorne crowed on behalf of all of them.

"You're welcome, but I didn't do it for you. I'm scared of the dark. Let me know when you see your next landmark, and I'll guide you the rest of the way."

"We're on our way. Let's move," Lorne urged, tugging on Vega's arm to hustle her to her feet. The walls rattled as they stood and Lorne glanced at the sprinkles of debris sifting down from the ceiling. "Let's move…quickly," he added.

They walked in silence for another ten minutes. The walls continued to rattle and moan. The moaning became whistling gusts and it finally hit Anne what she was hearing.

"What IS that noise?" Vega complained when another howl screamed at them right over their heads.

"The storm," Anne answered. "The shield must be down and the outpost is taking the brunt of the storm directly, now."

"Great."

"We're almost there. We'll set up in the break room and get all cozy while we wait for a jumper to come get us." Lorne sounded eager and Anne couldn't help but agree. She was just beginning to realize just how damn tired she was. Three hours of slogging through snow in sub-zero weather followed by two more of firefights was taking its toll. They all needed to rest.

"Just no singing around the campfire, sir," Vega teased.

"What? That's the best part!" Lorne pretended to sound disappointed. "I hear Teldy's got a great voice."

"What? Me? Hell, no! My shower soap even runs for cover."

They laughed and Lorne touched his radio. "What do you think, sir? Songs or no songs? …Sir?"

Sheppard had been silent for a while as they had been following a long easy corridor, and they knew where they were going anyway.

"Sheppard!"

No answer.

"Damn," Lorne breathed and turned his head to share a worried look. The happy, just-almost-relaxing moment evaporated.

Anne shoved past Lorne and broke back into a jog, determined to bust a gut getting back to Sheppard. Damn him. She'd expected something like this. So much for trust. So much for redeeming her mistake at the control room. She got so wrapped up in her searing thoughts again, that she realized Lorne had yelled her name twice before she jerked at the volume of his voice and spun to see him and Vega a good twenty paces behind her, shouting and pointing at the ceiling.

A glance up explained everything. So much for cocoa and singalongs in the break room.

The entire ceiling over her head was crumbling like a cookie under a truck tire. Pieces of the brittle, frozen, organic material were beginning to sift to the floor in everything from particles of dust to pebbles the size of bouncy balls. From the howling gale just beyond the roof, Anne guessed that the storm was finally claiming its prize after hundreds, thousands even, of years being held back by the shield.

Lorne and Vega were waving and shouting for her to come back. They both had their feet planted in the opposite direction and Anne almost turned back to dash away from the dangerous ceiling with them. Almost.

Sheppard was the other way. She looked at Lorne, who was going purple with anger and then she looked at the debris-littered hallway ahead. She was already this far.

"Major, get your ass back here and take cover!" Lorne resorted to the radio in a last ditch attempt to get her to listen. A large chunk of ceiling smashed into the ground between them and the howling wind grew abruptly much louder.

"I'm going forward," she replied, also through the radio. "I'll contact you when I reach Sheppard." She touched off her earpiece…and ran.

Dust stung her face as she barreled through the constant rainfall of debris. She raised her arms over her head and ducked, swatting away chunks as she felt them hit her hands. The further she ran, the longer the hallway seemed and the more debris seemed to fall. She just needed it to stay overhead for another twenty meters, and then she could duck into the smaller corridor that led to the break-room. Ten meters. Five.

She saw the junction, slammed her shoulder into the corner as she cut the turn short. A chunk the size of a baseball bounced off her head and she cursed, rubbing at the spot. Another heavy thump bruised her shoulder. Damn! She'd really hoped this corridor would be more stable, she thought as an even harder thump against her pack drove her to her knees. There was dust and debris everywhere. She couldn't see three steps in front of her. She could hardly breathe.

A crackling crash and a sudden cold blast flattened her into the floor, coughing and spluttering. Rocks pelted the full length of her body. A roar and a muffled whump blasted over her and her vision went grey.

So, maybe going after Sheppard wasn't such a good idea after all.


	4. Chapter 4

"Major! Teldy! Come in, Major. Dammit, Anne, answer me!"

The angry, terrified voice in her ear finally snapped Anne back from wondering why she was sleeping in a snowbank. She groaned, spit grit out of her mouth and sat up slowly.

"Yeah, I'm here, Major."

She propped herself up against the side of the hallway and looked back at the pile of rubble, ice and fresh snow that was all that remained of the corridor she'd turned out of, just in time. She'd been caught in the edge of the collapse, but the smaller corridor ahead was clear, covered, and comfortingly gloomy. She blinked blowing snow and dust out of her eyes and looked through the new hole into cloud-blackened sky. "I'm about 50 meters from Sheppard's location and the roof looks secure the rest of the way."

Anne could hear the sigh in Major Lorne's reply. "We're completely cut off. There's no way to join you from here. Sir, if you're listening, do you have that map open? Sir?"

Anne waited for an answer that never came and shoved herself to her feet, her pack banging against her back. "I'm on my way," she said at exactly the same time Lorne ordered, "Teldy, get to Sheppard as fast as you can."

She forced herself back into a jog despite aching muscles and bruises. She was sure she had a bruise the size of an ostrich egg on her right calf, and her knees were talking to her. The lights in the corridor were flickering and it was damn cold. What little residual heat the outer rooms had retained had just gone – literally – through the roof. She was preparing a list of medical and survival procedures to work down even as she skidded up to Sheppard's door, pounded once or twice and then jerked her knife out of her pack to slice into the wall.

"Sir, it's Major Teldy. Can you respond? Can you open the door?"

It took her twice as long as Lorne to jury-rig the mechanism and she was spitting with impatience when the doors, after a couple of false twitches, finally lurched open far enough to squeeze through. She shoved her way into the room and froze a second later, facing down the muzzle of Sheppard's 9mm. The chemical lamps were still burning coldly and the blue-white light gave Sheppard's grim expression a ghastly pale cast.

"Hi, sir. I thought I'd make a house call, but if you want to walk to the clinic instead, I'll leave." She had her hands raised, and spoke calmly.

He blinked, shook his head a little. The gun dropped heavily back into his lap. He was leaning up against the computer console facing the door, the injured leg propped up on his pack. The tablet computer he'd wired into the base of the wraith pedestal was lying on the floor, looking like it had slid off his lap.

"Teldy," he breathed. A cloud of steam puffed out at the weak breath.

"Yeah. Lorne and Vega got cut off, so you're stuck with me. We were worried about you. How do you feel?"

"Tired," Sheppard admitted, and then shivered, his whole body jerking with the tremor. "And cold."

"Is that all? I'm tired and cold, too. I want to check your leg and then we'll get this place warmed up."

Anne tugged on latex gloves and poked briefly at the wound through the hole in his outer suit. The second bandage was stained, but not soaked through, so she decided she had time to fuss with getting the door closed to block out the cold draft. She tucked the 2nd bag of saline inside her own suit to warm it up. She wanted to get it in Sheppard as soon as possible. Between the cold and blood loss, shock was her biggest worry.

She was very busy for the next half hour. By the time she finally ran out of things to do, she'd started the new IV, changed Sheppard's damp gloves and socks for two layers of dray ones, bundled him up in full outside gear – complete with hat, outer gloves and an improvised scarf – and busted out the tiny chemical heater Sheppard had stowed in his gear. It was about as effective as a paper umbrella in a thunderstorm, but it was something.

Lorne pestered her constantly during her work, but finally seemed resigned to setting up his own camp on the other side of the cave-in after Anne checked Sheppard's map and confirmed that the only way to them was to either climb outside, over the roof, and back in through the main entrance, or to walk the entire circle of the outpost.

Out of things to keep her moving for the moment, she sat down heavily on the floor beside where Sheppard lay on a thermal blanket, his feet propped up again on the stacked packs. She checked his pulse and was pleased when he swatted away her touch. He'd been groggy and lethargic for quite a while after she'd arrived. The IV was probably making the difference.

The wind howling and moaning overhead seemed much louder when she wasn't moving or prattling on to keep Sheppard alert. She pulled up her knees and rested her arms on them while she looked him over, this time with an eye for details. Despite the layers of clothing, he looked chilled, and his lips were tensed into a thin white line. The sweat from the overheated furnace room had congealed into a waxy sheen on his cold skin. He'd consented to take some ordinary Tylenol but aside from that small admission, he was still pulling the stoic routine. It didn't fool Anne. He was hurting. The deep breaths and occasional hitch gave him away.

"Shield's been down for an hour. Can a jumper fly through this?" A whistle of air screamed overhead by way of elaboration.

"Depends. They'll come as soon as they can. They'll get here."

Anne raised her eyebrow, unable to tell if he was jerking her chain or too bad off to answer with anything but platitudes. "Depends on what?"

"What?" he panted finally, after another hitch and deep breath. Definitely hurting.

"I'm no pilot. I prefer my feet on the ground except when it's the only ride out of freezing, wraith-worshipper-infested outposts. So, what decides whether I get to go home in ten minutes or ten hours?" Whether _he _could get home was what she was thinking. The signs of shock kept scrolling through her brain. He was already at the mild stage.

"Jumpers…jumpers don't fly on the physics of…of…aerodynamic force. Lift and drag. So wind isn't…problem for that. But…not streamline…catch lot of air. If you can keep 'em into the wind, you're better off than in a plane. If gusty or…or…whippy wind, you can get tossed around, slammed into the ground quick. So…so…"

"It depends," she finished softly as he swallowed hard for a second.

"Depends on how crazy your pilot is," he finished at last, trying for a grin.

"From what I hear, sir, I'm wishing you were back at Atlantis getting ready to fly."

He threw her a sidelong look, opened his eyes a slit. "Are you saying I'm crazy, Major?"

She blushed but held her ground. "It was you who ran into the automated defenses the first time your team brought a jumper here, wasn't it? I read the report. Sounded sticky. I read a lot of reports. I'm saying your reputation speaks for itself."

"You take out one little hive ship in a dart, and everyone thinks you're Evel Kenievel in a space ship," he muttered.

"I heard it was two."

"Right…right. Got the Queens to duke it out…" His voice trailed away and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Anne watched him force back obvious pain with a few deep breaths and sheer willpower. She buried her face in her hands, suddenly overwhelmed.

"Sir…" she began softly.

"Still not the time, Major."

Anne scrubbed furiously at her cheeks. "Yes, sir."

When Sheppard shuddered deeply a few minutes later, from cold or shock, groaned, and rolled onto his side, she squirmed around onto her knees again, and pushed at the man's shoulders.

"Sir, you need to keep your legs elevated."

She could see the desire in his tense frame to stay curled up, but she continued to shove and nudge until he rolled to his back with a groan. The groan turned into a hiss when she lifted the ankle of the damaged leg to prop it back up.

"I'm sorry," she found herself murmuring, the words standing as apology for more than just the doctoring. She checked the IV and then unplugged the empty bag. Sheppard growled with a long sigh of frustration, then resumed his tense endurance. She watched him closely for another few minutes.

"I owe you another apology, sir," she said at last, grasping his shoulder in what she hoped would be interpreted as respectful support. Sheppard didn't speak, but quirked his eyebrows into a questioning expression without opening his eyes. "Yeah. Remember when I laughed about handling the pain? You're doing fine, sir. Just fine."

He nodded. "You were right, too. Leg is…pretty damn…owchie." He gritted his teeth as if in demonstration.

"Still have that morphine…?"

"Still…need to stay…alert…" he gasped, then slowly faded out into something between rest and unconsciousness. He deserved it, she supposed. Even if it made her damn jumpy. After the third time she'd taken her glove off to check his pulse, she just dug her fingers through the layers of his sleeves, and kept her hand wrapped around his wrist.

There was nothing intimate about the gesture – she'd spent her entire life in the company of men who were professionals, colleagues. She was doing her job, keeping a wounded comrade under supervision. Nothing personal.

Except it was.

Anne began to realize that she desperately needed to keep this man alive. He was more than colleague or "just" her superior. He was…Sheppard, the man spoken about in hushed tones by skeptics and admirers alike – for whatever you thought about him, there was no denying that he was a remarkable soldier. She was coming to learn just how painfully remarkable he was.

She dropped her head onto her knees, shivering a little herself. She was really tired. It took all of her willpower to stay awake herself, and she found herself even a little envious of Sheppard and his nap. Another hour passed. The wind howled outside the complex and Anne shivered again. It was getting damn cold. The little heater was cranking out about as much heat as a candle relative to the ambient temp. She bundled up the still-sleeping Sheppard in another thermal sheet and walked around the room to warm herself up.

After a second hour had passed, she realized that the water in their small canteens had frozen, despite the layers of insulation. She broke out a cooking sterno and put one canteen over it to thaw. She woke Sheppard long enough to get him to drink some of the lukewarm water, and then put the thawed one inside her suit and set the second one onto the flame before it had used all its fuel.

When she was finished with that project, she spent a little time fussing with her hand scanner. She'd put it in her suit, hoping that it if warmed up long enough, the screen would clear. It had almost worked…until she brought it back out into the chill again and it started to dim like before. She did get a peek at the LSD and could see Lorne and Vega's dots huddled together a few corridors away. There were no other signatures wandering about in the halls nearby, so she stuffed it away again before it froze.

"Dammit! Where the hell are they?!" she spat into the room after a third hour.

Anne paced to stay awake and stay limber. The cold seemed to seep into her very bones. With a surge of claustrophobia induced panic, she began to shove her gear back into her pack with half a mind to walk back to the stargate and BRING a rescue team here.

"They'll be here," Sheppard said softly from his spot on the floor, correctly interpreting her manic activity. Anne snapped her mouth shut, surprised that he was awake – he'd been out for so long. His teeth were chattering almost constantly, but his expression was fierce. She made sure she answered with a calm tone, despite the doubt in the words.

"Sir, we're already five hours overdue. Atlantis' scanners should show them the shield is down. Why the hell aren't they here, now?"

"If it were safe to come, they'd be here. If it _weren't_ safe but _possible_ to come, they'd be here."

"Maybe we should –."

"Major, Carter's been on the other side of the puddle enough times to take nothing for granted. She'll send someone to check up on us as soon as it's remotely possible."

Anne's eyes went wide at the realization that – of course – Carter would be the one calling the shots back on Atlantis. She'd never thought of it that way. She sank to the floor to sit cross-legged beside him.

"I know that. Back in the Milky Way, though, gate teams are pretty much expected to make it back on our own. I guess I'm not used to depending on jumpers for backup. I don't like waiting," she admitted, only half telling the truth.

"I know the type," Sheppard muttered with an amused roll of his eyes. "It took Ronon months to trust me."

"Trust," she repeated idly, thinking about her epiphany from before. How was sitting around on your ass waiting for your ride anything about trust?

"They'll be here, Major. If it's not safe for them to come here, it's not safe for us to get there, either."

"Right," she said softly, trying hard to find the trust that was required within her. She trusted Carter, didn't she? "Right. Do you need anything sir? It's been hours. You should have some more water and maybe something to eat?"

"Water," he said. She got him a drink, fussed over his wraps a little, worried about the shivers he couldn't shake. She decided to check the LSD again, just to make sure she wasn't missing any rescue units that were wandering the complex looking for them. She unzipped her suit with an involuntary hiss at the chill and held it up quickly in case it started to fog.

"Uh, oh." The words came out without thinking.

"What?!" Sheppard was instantly alert, his eyes glittering.

"Got a bogey on the scanner. Lorne and Vega are accounted for. Single life sign, on our side of the cave in. Walking this…shit! Fogged."

She shook the scanner, just for spite, then shoved it back into the outer pocket at the same time she was leaping to her feet and flinging off the outer glove of her gun hand. The wraith stunner she drew was bitter cold. Her already cold fingers numbed around the weapon, making her grip feel stiff and odd. Sheppard was grunting as he struggled to shove himself upright. She crouched and stopped him with a hand on his shoulder when he paused to prop against the bench.

"Stay put, sir. I'll check it out."

He looked like he wanted to argue, but she saw the fatigue of pain around his eyes. Resignation seeped into his shuddering shoulders. He stopped trying to get up and flopped off his own outer glove to get a better grip on his 9mm.

"Right. Stay in touch," he breathed, pointed to his earpiece. For an instant, she wondered if he wanted the contact to keep tabs on her…or to keep himself conscious. He was already getting tense and breathing faster as sitting upright stretched torn muscles in the damaged leg.

She left her knife stuck into the wall beside the door after she closed it behind her – if she needed to get to Sheppard fast, she didn't want to have to spend three minutes fiddling to do it. It was damn cold and even thicker clouds of steam rose from each breath as she stalked in the direction of the mystery life sign. Compared to the exposed corridor, their coffee-break room was downright balmy. The severe cold felt like prickles against her skin and made her eyes felt weird in the sockets. She wouldn't be able to stay out here long without the rest of her gear.

From her brief glimpse at the scanner, she knew she had to make a couple of turns before she got close. She filled in Lorne and Vega in quiet whispers as she rounded the first turn and knew they were listening in along with Sheppard. The storm outside was an ominous companion, the screeching and howling providing fuel for her over-active imagination.

She slowed even further as she reached the final turn into the corridor she'd seen the dot. She crouched low, and peeped around the stringy corner.

"I'm at the place where the LSD said the bogey was five minutes ago. It's empty now. There are two open doors in sight and another junction just beyond the curve of the hallway," she whispered for her team's benefit. It seemed safe enough to talk. They didn't respond, respecting radio silence.

She remained there, in a crouch for several more minutes. She was just about to enter the hall and assume the something had taken the last turn when a furious growl froze her to the floor and turned her insides to ice. A chunk of something came flying through one of the open doors and smashed against the opposite side of the hall. A hunched, ragged figure stalked out after it and howled over the pieces again.

Anne jerked her head out of the hall and slammed her back against the wall, gulping air like a guppy on a plate. _Wraith_. Her first in-person look at one, too. She was terrified to move, terrified not to. With a supreme effort, she held her breath – lest the clouds of fog give her away – and peeked back around the corner. The wraith was just disappearing through the closest door.

She waited to make sure it was definitely in the room, destroying more things by the sound of it, then turned to slip quietly back the way she'd come. When she got to the next turn, she put her shoulder on the corner to watch her six and opened her radio.

"Sir, it's a wraith. It's searching room to room, looking for something. It looks really pissed off, throwing computers around and…screaming a lot."

The chorus of exclamation sounded too loud to Anne who was still wired by the encounter.

"Shit, was that thing here the whole time?" Vega shouted.

"The second hot spot," Lorne corrected, his voice just as keyed up. "Those worshippers in the furnace room were trying to thaw out their Wraith buddy but the pod controls were damaged. The one we saw would never have woken up. There must have been another hibernation chamber over the other hot spot."

"And this one did wake up." Vega sounded disgusted.

"Maybe the explosion triggered the alarm clock, or maybe some power spike reset another malfunctioning pod controller."

"How old is that damn thing?" Vega wondered. "This outpost is geriatric, so if those guys have been here since -."

"Hush!" Sheppard interrupted the conversation to Anne's immense gratitude. She didn't care how it woke up, she needed to know what to do about it. "Major, fall back. Do not engage the wraith. Those bastards don't go down easy, especially when they're…old." There was a shudder in Sheppard's voice.

"But sir, I have the advantage of surprise, if I can -."

"Fall back, Teldy. That's an order. Lorne, is there any way you can regroup? Even if there's only one wraith, we'll need combined firepower to take it out."

_Firepower? _Something jogged in Anne's brain and she was only half listening as Lorne answered, "We'll suit up and try to either go over the debris in the obstructed corridor, or over the roof. I can't promise you speed, though, sir. It's going to be tricky at best. Sorry."

"The M16! We parked it just outside the main entrance. That should be enough firepower, and then some." Anne's mind was already racing through scenarios, and she began to fall back as ordered. Sheppard's coffee-break room was down a dead end hallway thanks to the cave-in. The turn to the main entrance was between her and it and she ran until she got to the junction.

"Sir, Lorne and Vega can pick up the M16 once they're over the cave-in. I'll bunker down with you, hold the wraith off until they can join us." That plan had made the most sense as she hashed it out. It wasn't worth the risk to leave anyone alone with inferior firepower.

"How far to the entrance and the M16?" Sheppard sounded flat, disturbed almost.

"About a twelve minute round trip. Took me only five to close the distance between you and the wraith. It's too close for comfort, sir."

"There isn't far _enough_ away for comfort, Major. Retrieve the M16, then doubletime it back here."

For the second time that mission, Anne was taken aback by Sheppard's decision to break with conventional wisdom and forego the security of numbers.

"Sir?!"

She couldn't help it. Maybe it was because she was used to being in charge on away missions, but she kept finding herself blurting out arguments to his decisions.

"You're wasting time, Major. Get that damn gun. I'll be here when you get back, but I don't want to have to hold him off on my own any longer than I have to, got it?"

Anne almost bit her tongue around the curse she wanted to spit out.

"Got it," she said instead, her voice cold from more than the temperature. _Trust me_, was what he'd really said.

She ducked into the corridor that would take her to the entrance and away from Sheppard. The suit was awkward, the boots were impossible and she was going to get too hot, but she ran like a sprinter at the Olympics. She'd promised Sheppard twelve minutes – she'd be pissed if she didn't do it in ten.

She was just under five when she turned the last corner and a blast of arctic wind literally sucked the air out of her lungs. She lurched to a stop, gasping in air that was too cold for her lungs to do anything with. Only after she slapped her hand over her mouth and re-breathed some warm air from cupped fingers did the shock induced panic abate.

Ahead of her, the ragged crack in the wall that served as entrance looked like a white screen. The blizzard outside, dimly lit by the weak, never-setting sun, raged past in horizontal streaks of blowing ice. Gusts of wind hooked around the edges and spun a growing pile of snow into whirly-gigs.

Anne kept her hand over her mouth and squinted into the stinging gale. The crevice where Vega had stashed the M16 was just inside, Anne had to turn her back to the wind to find it, buried to the hand grip in drifting ice. She snatched it by the barrel and scurried back around the corner, shuddering in the bitter wind.

She didn't stop to test the weapon, she just ran as thorough a check as she could while on the move. She no longer worried about sweating – it was almost as damn cold inside as outside, just a little less windy. Her calves were screaming at her by the time she'd made it halfway back to the coffee-break room. The clunky and awkward boots forced her to lumber with an awkward lurch every step having never been designed for running. She'd been running all day in them. She tapped her earpiece twice to signal her intent to communicate.

"Sir, I'm…almost…to the final corridor. I'm going to take swing through the area and see if I can spot our friend before I join you, so we know generally where it's wandering around."

Anne sounded raspy and out of breath, even to herself.

"No need, Major. I know exactly where it is," was Sheppard's tense reply. Anne jerked to a halt, her heart in her ears.

"Sir?!" She really hoped that didn't mean what she thought it meant.

"It's tearing apart our room."

Yup, that's what she thought it meant.


	5. Chapter 5

_Shit! Shit! Shit!_

Anne shot around the last corner and threw the other outdoor glove on the ground behind her. The M16 was like a block of ice in her hands, despite the thin wool linings, but she unlatched all the safeties and brought it to her shoulder, ready to go. She hoped.

"I'll come in hot, sir. Take cover if you can!" she snarled, furious at the wraith for making a beeline to the only room in the damn place she didn't want it to be. And at Sheppard for being a damn go-it-alone, do it yourselfer, blindly optimistic - …

"Hang on, Major. I'm down the hall. It doesn't know I'm here, yet. You said it's looking for computer terminals, so I took the precaution of getting further away from the closest one. Good thing, too. It does sound pissed off."

Anne stumbled over a step in surprise. Sheppard had put all that together and not only anticipated the wraith's likely destination – the very place they were camped out – but bought himself time for Anne to return. But if he'd known the thing was coming, she was even more confused about why he'd taken the risk. Surely between them they could have kept the thing off long enough for reinforcements?

"You have the M16? Is it in working order?"

"Yes, sir. As far as I can tell without test firing."

"Lorne? How you doing?"

"We only just made it to the top of the debris pile. We're having to pack down as we go – it's very unstable. We're at least an hour out if the rest of the debris is as loose. Sorry." Lorne replied, his voice thick with frustration.

"All right. Teldy, we get to do this on our own. Our best bet is to catch it in the crossfire when it leaves the room. The hallway is curved, if we position correctly, we'll miss each other."

"Got it, sir."

Anne saw what Sheppard did: the hallway created sort of an arched triangle. They could catch the wraith at the point. She slowed to a creep and put her shoulder against the wall on the inside curve. She couldn't see Sheppard, but as she took a last step, she could hear the wraith howling and cursing and smashing things in their coffee-break room.

"I'm in position, sir," she whispered.

"Me, too. On my mark," Sheppard whispered back, sounding breathy but fully in command. Was this the same man who'd only minutes ago been lying on the floor, close to passing out from pain and exhaustion?

Anne took a few deep breaths – through her nose so as not to get chilled – and tried to relax her shoulders. The M16 felt large and bulky in her hands. She was used to the lighter P90s for routine exploration.

"I know you are here, human!" the wraith screeched from the room, and Anne cringed at the disturbingly understandable speech. "Your stench fills the room. Come and worship! I will show you your true purpose."

Anne could hear the mockery even through the guttural tone.

"Damn," Sheppard muttered, "he's met some of the other worshippers. He's probably fed, then."

Anne shivered, then tensed. The wraith had moved to the doorway. She could just make out a flicker of motion as it paused before leaving the room.

"I know you cower nearby, human! Perhaps if you show bravery and reveal yourself, I will reward you."

"Sorry! You'll have to come find me," Sheppard yelled from his side of the door. Anne sucked in a surprised breath, but the taunt worked. The wraith hissed in pleasure and stepped out of the hallway, turning its back to her as it faced Sheppard's direction. She lined up a spot between the wraith's shoulderblades in her scope, took a deep breath…and waited for Sheppard's command.

"You play games, worshipper? Stand before me, coward, and face your lord!"

"Go to hell. Now, Teldy!"

Anne pumped six rounds into the wraith's back before the thing could prepare its next bellow. The reassuring crack of Sheppard's 9mm filled the hallway with deafening sound. The wraith jerked with the impact like a grotesque puppet, and was shoved against the opposite wall. Each bullet left a weird, hovering trail of ice crystals – like jetstream in a clear blue sky – which was pretty, but screwed her visibility.

Anne had to take a step to the center of the hall to regain a line of sight, but she rather assumed the wraith was down. To her complete and utter shock, the thing howled, shoved itself off the wall and lunged. At Sheppard. She managed to reset and put another two shots into the thing before it was on the Colonel and then she couldn't fire without hitting him, too.

Sheppard kept pumping rounds into the thing's belly plating even as it grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall. The 9mm began to click pitifully and fell from Sheppard's hand, useless.

_God damn! _

"Back off! Let him go!" she heard herself scream, shuffling to find a firing position in the damn awkward space. Visibility was crap. Sheppard was clawing weakly at the wraith's hand around his neck with one hand, the other was scrabbling at the wall as if trying to find something to grab onto. Anne dropped to her knee, desperate for an angle. She pulled the trigger for one shot, then another. The wraith jerked and hissed and cursed, but it hung on to Sheppard. She saw it draw back its arm and curl its fingers into a claw. Holy shit, it was going to feed on Sheppard right there in front of her eyes.

She fired again, and then again. And again her visibility was fogged up, the barrel of the weapon was steaming. The wraith hesitated, staggered, and then thrust the feeding hand at Sheppard's chest.

"No!" she screamed and lunged to her feet, intending to charge the thing and knock it off Sheppard with her own body if that's what it took. Before she got there, the wraith howled and backhanded Sheppard hard across the face with the paw that had been holding him against the wall. It staggered back as Sheppard twisted and crumpled to the floor.

Anne aborted her charge and skidded into a protective crouch in front of Sheppard while the wraith screamed again, holding its feeding hand out in front of it. A standard issue combat knife was sticking through the sensitive organ and Anne glanced at the wall beside the door to the coffee-break room. The knife she'd left in the wiring was gone. Sheppard! That's what he'd been scrabbling at the wall for!

"Back off!" she yelled again. The wraith howled, but finally looked wary. It took a step down the hall, and then another when Anne managed to get a good shot into its chest despite the close quarters. Shot by shot, round by round, Anne drove it away from Sheppard, towards the cave in. Her mental tally of the M16's ordinance was counting down with alarming speed.

The wraith was looking pissed and desperate, but, still, the damn thing would not fall! What the hell were these things made of! It finally turned tail and lumbered away, around the perpetually curving corridor. The cave-in ahead would force it back her way only too soon. She left Sheppard to stalk after it. Sure enough, when she rounded the last curve, it was prowling back and forth in front of the debris, hissing at the hole in the roof. The wind whipped the wraith's long, tangled mane and froze the sweat on Anne's face.

"It's cut off, sir," Anne said into her radio, "I'll do everything I can to keep it here permanently, but be ready if it makes it past me."

"Roof!" was the only thing Sheppard said in reply, his voice a hoarse growl. Anne jerked her gaze up and saw that the edge of the cave in was just over the wraith's head. She felt a slow vicious smile tug on her lips.

"Good idea, sir."

The wraith, gave one last frustrated howl and charged, its oozing feeding hand reaching for her in desperate fury. Anne lifted the M16, pulled back on the trigger and emptied the rest of the magazine into the already weakened ceiling.

A sprinkling of dust was immediately followed by a snap. A great chunk of the ceiling fell onto the hissing and cursing wraith. Anne flung herself back down the hall, yet again racing a cascading collapse and threw herself over Sheppard until the sound of falling rocks faded to an intermittent trickle. A quick glance confirmed that all that remained of most of the hallway behind her, and the wraith, was a hump of debris and an even wider hole for the bitter wind to blast through.

"Yes! Holy shit I thought that fucker would never die!" she exclaimed, letting her mouth revert to a childhood of keeping up with four brothers. She was grinning and gulping with excitement when it dawned on her that Sheppard hadn't answered. The jubilation melted away instantly.

She scrambled off of him and felt terror clutch at her chest. Sheppard was writhing, with his hands back around his leg, each growling breath a quiet moan of agony.

"Oh, shit." The damn wraith had whacked him around like so much deadweight. "Sir, can you tell if you're bleeding again? Did your leg get twisted in the fall?"

"Think…think so," he panted. "Not…feeling…too good."

Anne shoved him off his side ignoring the cry the motion ripped out of Sheppard's throat. His hands were dripping with blood; thick beads welled between his clenched fingers to freeze almost instantly into crimson snowflakes on the cold ground.

"Sir, the bullet has shifted and compromised the femoral artery. I've got to get a tourniquet around that leg. Hang in there, do you hear me? I'll be back in ten seconds."

She bolted without giving him a chance to reply. Her first look at the coffee-break room brought tears of frustration to her eyes. The wraith had dumped and scattered both their packs and smashed the computer console. The first aid kit was spread around half the room and she yelled every curse her brothers had ever taught her as she grabbed at items randomly and shoved them into the closest empty pack.

When she got back, tears were freezing on her lashes. She blinked furiously as she hacked at the tough fabric of Sheppard's outer suit. He was still thrashing slowly against the pain, but his movement was getting weaker and weaker and his expression began to relax with droopy lethargy.

"Come on, sir! Don't let that bastard have the last say. Stay with me. Who's going to keep me out of trouble if some other damn Pegasus creepy-crawly jumps out at us? Huh? I'm the newbie here, remember? So far, I've screwed up every encounter this place has thrown at us. You can't leave me alone here, dammit!" Her voice grew pleading and her chest felt more and more desperate, even as she worked as fast as she'd ever worked to expose the heavily bleeding wound. When she finally managed to cut all the way around, she yanked the now-loose pant leg down around Sheppard's knee and snatched for the rubber tubing from the med kit.

Anne tied the tubing tightly around Sheppard's thigh, close to the groin, then looped a wooden tongue depressor from her pack under the rope. He groaned as she began to twist, tightening the tourniquet until it had dug deeply into the muscle, hopefully pinching off the flow to the damaged artery.

"Come on, sir. Can't hurt as bad as all that. What about 'I can handle it'? I need you to hang in there. I need you to know you'll be just fine once that jumper shows up with a cozy cot to lounge on. I need you to…trust me, sir. You need to know I'll do anything it takes to get you out of here, sir." Her voice broke, and she attacked the sopping and useless dressings, out of words for the moment.

"I trust you, Major," Sheppard whispered, his voice shockingly weak, his face frighteningly pale. "Give…tablet to…McKay," he gasped. His eyes rolled back and he went limp, his breath going fast and shallow, his body shuddering with tremors.

"Dammit!" Anne yelled, but none of her pleading had any effect. Sheppard was out for the count. She flung the soaked dressings across the hall where they landed with a wet splat and forced herself to probe the bloody wound. She wiped away a pool of blood from the gouge and was a little relieved to see it fill only slowly. She gave the tourniquet one last twist, checked the seepage again, then tore open the package of powdered coagulant for good measure. A liberal sprinkle of the miracle stuff, another dressing, and the hole was plugged pretty damn good. Again.

She sat back briefly, breathing hard and shivering at the same time. She had to get him out of the damn hallway or hypothermia would do what blood loss hadn't managed to, yet. She stared at the blood coating the rubber gloves on her hands, then slowly reached over to draw a letter "T" and the time on Sheppard's forehead with broad smears. That would tell anyone who found them to look for and treat the injured leg first…and how long the leg had been bound.

It took a massive effort to heave herself standing, even more so to hook her arms under Sheppard's and drag him back into the trashed coffee-break room. She forced herself to twiddle the door closed and wrap him up as best she could before she collapsed against the bench next to him. She dug her cold fingers into his wrist, and dropped her head on her knees, exhausted.

She may have drifted off for a bit, because the next thing she heard was scratching at the door and Lorne's voice calling repeatedly over the radio.

"Sheppard! Teldy! Come in. Are you in there? We're opening the door. Come in!"

"Teldy here. We're inside," she replied wearily.

The door opened only seconds later and Lorne and Vega rushed in, looking cold and just as exhausted as she felt. Anne looked at her watch.

"You made good time."

Lorne waved at Vega to shut the door and dropped into a worried crouch by Sheppard's side.

"Vega figured out how to jury rig snow-shoes out of debris and bungee cords. Spread our weight and got us over the loose stuff faster." Anne managed to flash an impressed smile at the young woman.

"I watched MacGyver as a kid," Vega quipped with her usual wit, but her voice was just as tired. She dropped heavily next to Anne and sprawled against the bench with her head rolled back and her eyes closed. "How's Sheppard?" she added softly, deep concern in the tone.

"Not good, but not _bad_, bad. The wraith put up a pretty damn good fight. Sheppard got knocked around and the bullet shifted - nicked or severed the femoral artery. I had to apply a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. He passed out shortly after."

"And the wraith?" Lorne's voice was hard.

"Under the pile of rubble you just crawled over. The thing took two magazines of bullets and was still standing. Sheppard suggested the avalanche." Anne closed her eyes and shuddered. Even bleeding out, Sheppard had kept his wits about him.

Lorne plopped himself on the floor and they all sat in exhausted silence. Only when Sheppard moaned in his sleep and started to shake so hard that Anne was afraid he was going to bite his tongue, did they move to pull out every thermal blanket they could find and huddle together, with Sheppard propped amid them.

"Will he lose his leg?" Vega asked softly, breaking the silent stupor that had fallen upon them again.

"A limb can survive up to two hours under these conditions, but after that, the longer it takes to restore blood flow…" Anne trailed off and shivered again. She glanced at the smears on Sheppard's forehead. "It's already been an hour."

The storm howled above the roof over their heads and down the hallway outside their door. Anne was so tired, every moment of wakefulness she achieved was an act of will. Vega was snoring softly with her head on Lorne's shoulder who kept shooting the Captain disgusted looks every time he was jolted awake by a louder than average snort. Anne refused to sleep. Sheppard's pulse still under her fingertips continued to quicken and feel lighter somehow. He shivered continually. She fell into a black stupor, neither awake nor asleep where every flutter of his pulse became the pounding of a round from her M16 and the screaming wind was the wraith screaming at her and refusing to die.

When the roof came crashing down on her and she jumped, startling herself awake from the waking dream, she looked wildly around the room for what had triggered the panic. The room was very quiet. Lorne and Vega were passed out under their tent-like huddle of thermal sheets and Sheppard was panting softly, otherwise completely motionless.

Wait a minute. The room was quiet?

Anne yanked the sheet off her head and listened closer. The wind was still shushing overhead but with more of a hiss than the screaming howling of before. No wait! The hissing was coming from somewhere else.

"Col…Shep…read? …in. Jump…can…respond?"

The hissing was the faint crackle in her ear from a staticy and weak radio signal. Anne leaped to her feet.

"This is Major Teldy. Say again? Repeat, say again!" Lorne and Vega stirred at the excitement in her voice and also slapped their hands to their ears when the broken but increasingly clear reply came.

"Major! Good to….voice! This is Cpt. Anderson in jumper…en route to the outpost. ETA four minutes. What's your status. Please advise."

"It's good to hear you, too!" Anne shouted happily. "We need immediate evacuation. Medical emergency. Relay to Atlantis to have vascular surgical team prepping and ready upon arrival." She probably should have left the reporting to Lorne who was technically in charge of the mission with Sheppard out, but she was too tired, worried, and too goddam relieved to think much of it.

"Understood. Gate is still open and Atlantis has been advised. Do you need us to come in to get you, or can you meet us at the entrance?"

Anne exchanged a look with Lorne, he shrugged, deferring the decision to her. She thought it through for another second. She glanced at her watch.

"We'll come to you Captain. Every second counts."

"I'll carry him," Lorne announced, sounding grim.

Vega and Anne helped heave Sheppard off the ground. Lorne flipped him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, careful to avoid putting pressure on the wounded leg. Anne took an extra minute to shove McKay's laptop and as many wraith memory crystals as she could find from the dumped pack back into her bag and then jogged after Vega and Lorne who'd started without her. When Lorne began to stumble with fatigue five minutes into the grueling walk, the women grabbed his elbows and held him steady the final meters to the exit.

The entrance was just as cold as before and they all gasped at the blast of freezing wind that hit them around the final turn. The view outside hardly looked any better than earlier, Anne realized with a jolt. The storm still blew a raging blizzard of ice past the door. Visibility was still practically zero. A shadowy figure emerged from the eerie whiteout and waved for them to continue.

"It's OK. The jumper is only twenty meters from the entrance. I'll guide you!"

Anne didn't recognize the soldier, kitted up in full snow gear as he was, but she followed eagerly into the bitter blast. It took all four of them to keep Lorne and his burden upright in the ferocious wind, but the shadow of the jumper loomed into view after only a dozen struggling steps.

Lorne heaved Sheppard up the ramp with a final heroic effort, then collapsed into an exhausted heap after Anderson and the three rescue team members lifted the unconscious Colonel off his shoulders.

"Get us home, Captain!" Anne snapped and butted her way into the crowd around Sheppard who was lying in a limp sprawl on the starboard rear bench. Anderson leaped into the cockpit and had the jumper airborne even before Anne had managed to wrestle Sheppard's arm out of the snow suit to hook him into the bag of saline that one of the eager rescuers had waiting.

The ride to the gate was bumpy and it took two attempts at the gate before Anderson managed to slip the jumper through the puddle without getting slammed by the wind into the ring's solid edge. Anne pressed her arms into Sheppard's limp shoulders over the bumps and dips that not even the inertial dampeners could completely suppress.

Even once they'd settled to a hasty landing in the jumper bay and Dr. Keller's efficient emergency medial team had swooped upon Sheppard like a pack of wolves, Anne couldn't let go. She stayed at Sheppard's head and barked suggestions and answered questions before the medics could get their mouths open.

"He's got a deep gash in his right thigh. The bullet is imbedded near the artery. I applied a tourniquet one hour and forty minutes ago."

"Pulse?" demanded the medic in charge who frowned when it was Anne who answered.

"Pulse is rapid and thready. He's been experiencing tachycardia for the past hour."

"Hey, Major," Anne felt a tug and looked up from the bustle to find Vega looping her own arm around Anne's. "Let's let the medics work, huh? I've seen them sedate teammates for excessive hovering. Not pretty."

Anne scowled, then caught the annoyed looks circling the room and stood up hastily. Vega kept an arm through hers and gently pulled her further away.

"He'll be fine," the young Captain said at last. She sounded like she was saying it so she'd believe it herself. One of the sergeants from the rescue team was slapping Lorne on the back and helping him to his feet. Anderson was sitting in the pilot's seat, his leg bouncing in agitation as they all watched the medics finish messing with the Colonel and launch him onto a stretcher to race out of the jumper and towards the infirmary.

Anne's legs began to shake, her hands started to sweat and she staggered to a bench to sit down heavily. She buried her face in her hands. She felt Vega sit next to her, saying nothing.

"What a…fuckup," Anne whispered.

"I don't know, ma'am," Vega answered lightly. "We all made it back. Sheppard got his intel. We took out a few wraith."

Anne turned to look at the woman in shock. "You're kidding me? THAT was a nightmare."

"THAT was about par for the course, Major," Lorne jumped in ruefully.

Vega nodded again, this time looking far too wise and sober for her years, "We don't always get to choose how things go down. Sheppard tells us all the time that the only way to beat the odds is to go with the flow. To adapt to the situation. Even then, it doesn't always work out the way we want."

"Trust your team," Anne added softly, watching Anderson saunter out. She'd been focused on Sheppard, but she'd seen enough to realize that the Captain had his hands full on the short hop to the gate. The storm had been far from "safe" and only barely inside the line of "possible." She suddenly guessed that Anderson was a pilot that she should put firmly in the "crazy" category and made a mental note to thank him later.

"You got it." Vega slapped her back, stood up with a groan and headed out the rear of the jumper. Anne looked at Lorne who was watching her with his hands on his hips.

"You sure that wasn't hazing?"

Lorne chuckled, the sound a weary chuff. He stuck out his hand, pulled her to her feet and held on in a firm shake.

"Welcome to Atlantis, Major."


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: and now for the gratuitous comfort part of the hurt/comfort, and the "i learned something today moment". I do so love that part of the story!_

Anne fell asleep on the exam table during her post mission checkup, so it just happened that she was still in the infirmary when Sheppard was brought out of surgery and wheeled to a station in the corner. She woke up with a blanket over her and the lights dim above her nook, still wearing the soggy running shorts and t-shirt she'd had on under the snowsuit's inner layer.

A nurse hurried over as she struggled upright to watch Dr. Keller pacing beside Sheppard's bed.

"How's…" Anne cleared her throat, feeling very groggy, "How is Colonel Sheppard's leg?" she croaked out. The nurse gave her a sympathetic shrug.

"They just brought him out of the OR. I haven't heard, yet. I'll tell Dr. Keller you're asking about him if you wish?" Anne nodded, feeling foolish for interrupting the doctor from her much more important tasks, but desperate for news. She wrapped her blanket tightly around her shoulders and slid off the exam table, thinking she'd walk over there if lucky enough to be invited. To her surprise, Keller glanced her way, nodded to the nurse and came to her.

A tall, bulky shadow pushed off the wall just opposite Sheppard's bed to follow the doctor and Anne realized that Ronon Dex, from Sheppard's team, had been standing there the entire time and was also coming over to hear the report. To Anne's further consternation, Colonel Carter strode into the room at that exact moment and joined them, too. She pulled the blanket more tightly in front of her, feeling exposed and grubby.

"How is John?"Carter asked first, taking the initiative as Anne would have expected.

"He's finally stable. The surgery was touchy for a while there. He was in shock and borderline hypothermic when he came in, but we couldn't wait if we were going to save the leg."

"Did you?" Ronon barked, the question almost a challenge. Jennifer smiled reassuringly.

"His leg is going to be fine. The femoral vein was only nicked by the imbedded bullet, not severed," she shot a closed look at Anne, "which is why he's still with us at all. I heard you provided the first aid, Major, and you did a fine job, but it was a close call. We repaired the damaged vein and restored blood flow to the rest of the limb very quickly. The biggest battle was fighting the shock. We still need to keep a close eye on him for the next several hours and we'll be pumping fluids back into him for days."

Ronon flashed a big happy grin at the doctor and thumped her on the shoulder.

"Well done, Jennifer," Carter added.

Anne was so torn between relief that Sheppard had survived and horror at knowing how close it had been that she couldn't decide which to feel. Keller just shrugged.

"He won't feel that great for a while. And he isn't going to be happy with his running times for even longer." This time the doctor's look was at Ronon.

"I'll take it easy on him," Ronon answered, still grinning. "When's he going to wake up?"

"Anytime, but I'm not expecting him to be chatty."

"I'll hang with him for a while, anyway."

"And I'll pass on the news to McKay and Lorne. They were both pestering me on my way in," Carter said.

"And Teyla," Ronon added, "she'll want to come, too."

Anne just listened, feeling like she was intruding as Ronon and Carter made arrangements for Sheppard's friends and colleagues to visit him. She was very much an outsider in that moment, merely an…acquaintance. When Keller and Ronon left to return to Sheppard's side and Carter suddenly turned to speak to her, Anne almost flinched.

"Lorne's given me the short version, Major," Carter was saying. "We'll meet for full debriefing tomorrow afternoon, after you've all gotten some rest."

"Yes, ma'am," Anne mumbled, embarrassed she'd fallen asleep when Lorne, who was just as exhausted as she was, had managed to stay awake and complete his duties. Carter cocked her head and looked her over.

"I'm sorry your first time out was so harrowing. From what Lorne told me, though, you made a hell of an impression."

"Really?"

"You don't think so?"

"I don't know what to think."

"We'll go over everything at the debriefing. For now, get some sleep and some perspective and let me know if you need anything."

Carter left the infirmary with her usual purposeful stride and Anne just stood there, at a loss. The nurse who'd first spoken to her came back and handed her a cup of water.

"Marie wanted to get a blood sample, Major, but we didn't want to wake you up. If you'll wait for just a minute, I'll get the phlebotomy kit and then you can go rest in your own rooms."

"Ok."

Anne hopped on the edge of the bed and settled the blanket. She swung her legs like a kid and found herself staring at Sheppard across the room. Keller stood in front of the monitors looking like she was watching an action-packed movie, so thorough was her concentration. Ronon had parked himself near Sheppard's elbow and was watching her watch the screens.

As the nurse returned and began to wrap up Anne's arm for the blood draw, she saw both Ronon and Keller stiffen, then shift their full attention to Sheppard. Anne leaned a little to see around the nurse better. Sheppard's head rolled on the pillow, then turned to track Ronon who bent close and murmured at him. As the needle pricked her arm, Anne watched Sheppard's hand lift weakly from the bed for Ronon to clasp like a brother in a firm, palm to palm grip. Keller was smiling and she patted Sheppard on the shoulder before scurrying off to the pharmaceutical room.

"All done. Marie recommends at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep and try to eat something before you turn in so you'll be able to rest longer. You're free to go."

The nurse left with Anne's vial of blood, leaving her to gather her discarded snowsuit and gear. Ronon was bent over Sheppard's bedrails, talking softly with an urgency that was as intense as it was encouraging. She looked back again when Sheppard slapped his hands on the rail in a white-knuckled grip and let out a hiss of discomfort that she could hear from across the room. She'd watched that look of endurance on his face for hours and had a sudden urge to run over and…do something.

Before she could get her body moving, though, Ronon thumped Sheppard hard on the chest and said something that made him…laugh? Yes, Sheppard was smiling ever so slightly and his shoulders were jerking in a happy (if weak) chuckle. Keller bustled back to inject something into Sheppard's IV line and his hands slid off the rail, his eyes drooped, and he went very still again. Ronon and Jennifer murmured to each other, the tones sounding both concerned and relieved.

Anne looked away, feeling like a voyeur. The Colonel had close friends and people who cared for him. She'd spied upon an intimate moment and it left her feeling very out of place and very strange. If he had been a wounded peer or subordinate, she wouldn't have hesitated or felt awkward at all about visiting or asking about him, but she didn't think her discomfort was just because he was her CO, either, exactly. She didn't know the man, not really. So she couldn't figure out why she was feeling almost…jealous of his friends who were invited to his bedside.

The feeling persisted even after she'd made it back to her quarters. She choked down a cup of yogurt and a powerbar, then collapsed into her bunk. Her calves cramped up almost immediately and she spent some time kneading the abused muscles, and thinking.

Her brain insisted upon re-hashing every minute of the mission. The conclusion she kept coming to was that Sheppard was one of the most versatile field operatives (Col. Carter aside) she'd had the experience of working with. If versatile meant "flying by the seat of your pants".

When she finally flipped out the light, she had a plan. She would suck it up and go see Sheppard before the debriefing with Carter. She would apologize and receive his blessing or his curse. Only then would she be able to face Carter with a clean conscience and an honest account.

Anne blew out a big breath and flopped on her bunk until she'd buried her face in the mattress and covered her head with a pillow to hide in the stuffy darkness.

Damn it.

So much for rule number one.

Again.

* * *

It was a lot harder to catch a minute with Sheppard than Anne had imagined. Not because he was sick or out of it, but because he had company all the damn time. The first time she swung by the infirmary on her way to breakfast, the Colonel was having his own with what looked like his whole team. On her way by after breakfast, Dr. Keller and the nursing staff were obviously performing medical torture and Anne beat a hasty retreat before she was seen.

Lorne had given them all the morning off, so Anne indulged in a long leisurely workout and even longer hot shower, feeling the kinks and aches from yesterday's trauma relax just a little bit. At mid-morning, Sheppard was asleep and Anne was run off by a very stern nurse who'd clearly been given orders to make sure he stayed that way.

By lunchtime, Anne was getting desperate. The debriefing with Carter was at thirteen hundred and she rather assumed Sheppard would be joined by friends again at the noon meal. She wolfed a sandwich and went to the infirmary anyway, deciding that she'd interrupt this time and ask for a minute. She was surprised when she found him dozing over a tray alone, looking either grumpy or sleepy.

He watched her with a bemused expression as she sidled up to the bedrails. She was coming in on the "sleepy" side when he blinked as if it were hard to keep his eyes open…or focus.

"Hi, sir," she said with a grin. "How's the leg?"

"Doc says it's not going to fall off, but I won't be able to run the Atlantis Marathon next month."

"I didn't think you were signed up for that."

"I'm not, but I'm sticking with the line, so don't tell anyone else."

"I promise," Anne chuckled. The man was a book of one liners, and strangely…goofy when he wasn't commanding a team in the middle of a firefight or defending himself from geriatric wraith.

"How about you?"

"Me? I'm fine. A few bruises. Blisters from running in those darn boots."

"No frost bite? Bug bites? Power sucking aliens in entropy trap bites?"

"…No, sir?"

"Good. Then you're already doing way better than me your first three weeks on the job."

"I'll take your word for it!" She laughed, suddenly getting the 'bug bite' reference at least. She'd read all the reports relating to the iratus bug just last week. Sheppard had discovered those beasties the hard way. He grinned, too, then shifted slightly, wincing with even the small movement. "Still owchie?"

"Yeah," he chuckled. "But not as bad. Thanks to my friend, here." He pointed to a small bag of medicine that dripped steadily into his arm with the standard bag of saline. "By the way, thanks for the first aid, Major. Keller says I was running on empty, but that it would have been a lot worse without your help." He shuddered. "Worse as in dead," he added, sounding creeped out.

Anne tensed, remembering the real reason she was here. "Sir, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"About first aid?" his voice was harder than his expression and Anne assumed he was deliberately misunderstanding. Before he could say "still not the time" Anne rushed on.

"About how you were injured in the first place."

"A heat-stroked wraith worshipper shot me."

"While you were holding the exit for me to get back into position."

Sheppard sighed as if resigning himself to the conversation. She could tell it was taking extra effort to concentrate and she felt even worse about pestering him. Still...

"Why were you out of position, Major?" The question was formal and Anne almost snapped to attention at the tone of command he'd put back into his voice.

"Because I incorrectly assumed you were pinned down and unable to retreat without assistance. I left my position to clear out some of the hostiles."

"Vega had the exit under control?"

"Yes."

"You didn't sneak off to catch a smoke behind the bleachers?"

"No, sir." She couldn't quite keep the bite out of her voice. Why did he refuse to take this seriously? "But you ordered us to hold the exit and avoid getting separated. Sir, you could have died. I made a serious error in judgment that resulted in your injury."

"You don't know that."

Anne was taken aback, "But the delay –."

"What do you want?" Sheppard snapped and Anne stiffened into attention at the rebuke in his tone, "Do you want me to dress you down like a first year cadet, _Major_?" He stressed her rank pointedly. "You're not supposed to need a mother hen slapping you around after every mission that goes sideways. I need to know I can just trust that you'll learn from it and move on. Can I do that, Major?"

Anne's face was burning, but more from insight than his words. She _was_ acting like a damn cadet looking for approval and attention by "confessing". Sheppard was more annoyed with her for whining and dwelling on it than he was for the mistake itself. Rightfully so. A fierce determination writhed in her belly.

"You can trust me, sir."

"Good." His voice went softer, and he smiled at her. "We all have stuff we have to live with. You can let it drag you down, or you can use it to give you drive. If your worst transgression to date is stepping away to shoot some bad guys off your CO's back, then you're a featherweight on the cosmic guilt scale. Pegasus is going to dish out a lot worse than that. Show me you can handle it."

"I will, sir. I can handle it."

"We'll see," he said. Anne scowled and glared until she realized his eyes were sparkling and his lips were quirked in an expression of pure mischief.

"You don't think so?" she challenged as he had while bleeding out on the wraith bench.

He chuckled. "I do. You'll be fine. Check in with Lorne and Sgt. McAllister and get your team on the offworld duty rotation."

"My team?"

"Your pick. Put together the best and brightest, Major. We need you out there."

"Yes, sir." A warm glow spread all the way from her shoulders to her toes. Not only was he approving her for offworld exploration (which had been expected), but he was also giving her personal pick, a more unusual courtesy. "I'm looking forward to it!"

"Sheppard! There you are!"

Anne turned towards the bellow to see Dr. McKay rushing towards them, a sandwich in one hand, a bottle of water tucked under one arm and a tablet computer tucked under the other. Anne had never seen the man go anywhere slowly. Sheppard threw her a look.

"Where else would I be, Rodney?"

"Right. Anyway, listen! The intel from that wraith outpost is really fascinating. I've been looking through it all morning. You have to see this." McKay spun, unable to grab the tablet he was trying to reach with his hands full. Sheppard chuffed, leaned forward (with a groan) to snatch the sandwich and proceeded to take a huge bite while McKay got the bottle put down and the computer propped into an elbow. He tapped for a second, then jerked his head up, looking around for something. "Hey!" he yelped and grabbed the sandwich back.

"What do I have to see?" Sheppard prompted, still chewing.

"Oh, right. Here." He shoved the tablet at Sheppard and then shoved more of his sandwich into his mouth, as if afraid Sheppard would try to get it again. Anne leaned closer, curious about what they'd found. She'd spent the day yesterday freezing and fighting for that intel. She wanted to know if it was worth it. Sheppard tilted the screen so she could see better.

"We got the schematics and power configurations for that shield that was protecting the outpost. It's the only one I've seen that is semi-permeable enough to allow organic transference."

"Sweet. Think we can make something like that, too?" Sheppard asked, genuinely excited. Anne understood why. A shield that would protect teams from aerial assault and weather without interfering with movement on the ground _would_ be…sweet.

"No," McKay answered.

"Why not?"

"Well, not anytime soon. Maybe though. But that's not all we found."

Anne chortled as Sheppard opened his mouth, presumably to protest McKay's abrupt dismissal of the topic, then sighed, sagging further into the pillows. "What else?"

"Anderson's team found notes and diaries and all kinds of stuff in one of the wraith worshipper camps that didn't get destroyed. Those guys were apparently wannabees, so they had all kinds of information about other worshipper groups, where they are, how they could be contacted, etc."

Sheppard shoved against his bed and sat up very straight, unadulterated triumph glowing in his eyes. This time, Anne wasn't as sure why the excitement. "Sweet!" he repeated.

"You sent another team back?" she asked.

"Sam did. The storm ended about 5 this morning. Anderson was in and out by 8."

"That's excellent! We've been trying to get a line into the worshippers for months. We seriously need that angle to flesh out our intelligence network." Sheppard was still worked up.

"Your spooks are already on it. Major Barker was practically drooling."

Anne could imagine Barker doing just that. He was Anne's counterpart on Atlantis in command of ground forces, but he specialized in intelligence and special ops. Barker didn't regularly take exploration teams offworld, but if there was something "special" that needed to be done, Barker was your guy.

"Were there any worshippers left?" She wondered. McKay shrugged.

"Between the explosions and the wraith, there were only two or three left. We're getting some good stuff out of them, too. And about that…" McKay trailed off and shook his finger threateningly at Sheppard.

"About wraith worshippers?" he asked innocently.

"You blew stuff up!"

"The shield generators had to go, Rodney. That was the only thing we blew up," he looked at the ceiling and added, "on purpose."

"You destroyed the entire control room and an actual wraith hibernation deck. Do you realize what we could have learned from the hibernation pods alone?"

"There were two."

"The other one collapsed from storm damage after Anderson cleaned it out."

"That's not MY fault," Sheppard argued mildly, then winced again. His brief burst of enthusiasm was fading rapidly and Anne looked him over for a moment almost out of habit, she realized. He was wilting, physically and mentally into his pillows and the bemused (drugged) sluggishness was rapidly becoming an effort to maintain. There were still smudges of blood on his forehead, she realized, and his hair was spiky and dull from long-dried sweat. It took all her effort to remember that only yesterday he'd been a few pints from the big drain-out.

"You're in charge. Everything is your fault," McKay was saying. Anne bristled and shot a look at Sheppard who didn't react at all except with a slight smile.

"You know how it is. One thing leads to another to another until the only way out is through. Next thing you know, stuff is blowing up."

"_Everything_ leads to stuff blowing up in your twisted world."

"I almost became a permanent resident. When I passed out after the wraith knocked me around, I…wasn't sure I was going to wake up again." He scrubbed his face and pulled his covers higher up his chest, as if suddenly chilled. "Destroying the generator got me home, Rodney."

Anne squirmed and looked away, surprised that Sheppard would admit that fear, especially to someone like McKay…and with her in the room. Rodney did look a little awkward and he dropped the bluster.

"Well, I suppose we're glad you did. Get home, I mean. Would get pretty boring around here without you blowing stuff up on a regular basis."

"You couldn't live without me."

"I'm sure the feeling's mutual," McKay snapped, back to petulant. Anne couldn't resist.

"The Colonel's last words were of you, Doctor," she said innocently.

McKay's eyes went wide and round with horror and Sheppard's expression was so split between embarrassment and glee at McKay's reaction that she chortled, spoiling the joke. She was a terrible poker player.

"I _mean_, the Colonel's last command was to make sure the intel he had collected made it back to you," she confessed. Sheppard laughed out loud and McKay relaxed, still looking awkward. "Which, I'm glad he did, because I probably would have left the stuff lying there without a second thought. I was just so glad to get to come home."

"See, Rodney. I do _try_ to be useful…before I blow stuff up."

"Lorne blew stuff up," Anne corrected firmly, deciding that credit was due where it was deserved.

"Whoever blow whatever up, just…thanks for the data," McKay grumped. He snatched the tablet off Sheppard's lap. "Just thought you'd want to know what it was you got shot up for."

"I did. Thanks," Sheppard whispered, even closer to sleep.

"Teyla's making us eat dinner with you again, so I'll see you later."

McKay bustled off and Anne took a deep breath, planning to excuse herself as well, but Sheppard had closed his eyes and was breathing long slow breaths of peaceful rest. Anne hesitated, watching him drift off. That odd feeling of admiration was still planted in her chest, but she could also see him as a normal person, too – a regular guy who got scared when he was hurt and had friends who ribbed him just because.

Scuttlebut around the base was that he was also a complete idiot around women, but what guy wasn't? It hadn't been an issue on the job. She'd never had a moment she'd doubted his assumptions of her abilities and – sadly – that was a bias she'd experienced in her career. She admired him even more for that, however much she might giggle about his off-duty social skills.

"Good bye, sir. It's going to be a pleasure to work with you," she added softly and blushed when Sheppard lifted one hand to wave in sleepy acknowledgment.

She headed out of the infirmary and towards the debriefing with a spring in her step. She was really looking forward to picking her team and getting back out there. Vega had really seemed to know her stuff, she thought, and the Captain had performed extremely well under tough conditions. She just might pull Vega from her current assignment…if Vega wanted to go permanent exploration, that is.

Anderson had caught her notice, too. They'd get some more interesting assignments if they had a competent pilot on the team. That would really test Sheppard's promise of giving up the best and brightest. The last spot could go either security or science. She was more interested in exploration than PR or MP. She'd try hard to book a scientist. Corrigan maybe.

By the time she got to the briefing room, she was fairly bouncing with anticipation. She'd talk to Vega today, if she could. Anderson, too. And she'd spend some time with the database, thinking about that last spot.

She pushed open the door, forcing herself to return her focus to yesterday's mission and the details she needed to remember for the debriefing – no whining or confessing included. There _would_ probably be some "constructive" criticism, though, she realized, ruefully. In the proper format…at the right time.

The room was dark and she had to flip on the lights before she could saunter to the small table and pick her spot. She was the first one to arrive for the meeting.

(Yes!)

_Fini_

* * *

A/N: Yay! This is technically the end, but check out the epilogue that briefly traces Teldy from this story to Whispers, just for grins and giggles. Thanks again to Frankius17 for the amazing prompt and good sportedness with what I did to that poor, shredded, original outline ;-) Thanks for reading.


	7. Chapter 7

**Epilogue**

It turned out that Anderson was given his own team only a few days after Anne asked him to consider joining hers, so she reluctantly gave up the idea of an aerial team and set out on her first mission through the gate two weeks later with Vega, Corrigan and a Sgt named McQuarry. He'd come highly recommended as an explosives specialist, but she quickly realized that that talent was burden rather than asset. He wanted to blow _everything_ up.

Seven days after that, the news hit the base that Sheppard (checked out for full duty and bearing only a slight limp) had high-tailed it to the Midway station with McKay and a large strike force. Sheppard engaged a wraith invasion force and then Atlantis lost all contact. The base was on tenterhooks for two weeks while Daedalus raced from Earth to Midway to find out what had happened.

The reports came in before Sheppard and the rest got back. Only four of the original 18 had survived. Midway was destroyed. The Intergalactic bridge was down, probably permanently. A shadow fell over the base that only got worse over the next two months.

Sheppard had made it off Midway, but shortly thereafter, Teyla was kidnapped by the wraith called Michael. Lorne took the loss hard. Anne herself was working flat out just to keep the teams going that were being sent out as security escorts for the medics who were fighting a galactic illness that was sweeping through allied and hostile worlds alike.

Anne had one patch of sunshine in midst of the gloom during those hard days: critical intel came in from the wraith worshipper community and gave Lorne and Sheppard their best lead on Michael's hideout since Teyla had first disappeared. That particular lead had been a direct result of the mission to the frozen wraith outpost. The fact that they found Dr. Beckett instead of Teyla didn't change Anne's pleasure at all.

The hope didn't last. When Sheppard went missing after a routine meeting with an ally, you could have measured morale with a toothpick. Lorne walked the halls like a man lost in a nightmare. He put on a good face for the unit, but Anne could see the haunted expression in his eyes at command briefings. McKay and Ronon ran the investigation into the Colonel's disappearance, but after a wild but ultimately useless mission to yet another of Michael's hideouts, Anne could feel the despair rising to the highest levels of the city. Atlantis was a mess.

Anne's offworld duties got put on hold as the Majors dealt with command issue after issue. There was no such thing as "routine" exploration in any case. She reassigned Vega and McQuarry (and didn't plan to ask him back) and let Corrigan go with Ronon's team as they searched for the Colonel.

The longest day of Anne's life was the day Sheppard leaped home through the stargate to everyone's complete befuddlement. Six hours later, he was hustling another strike force through the gate. Anne watched Lorne and one of Barker's units gear up and march out, led by a wildly energetic Sheppard, still dusty from wherever he'd been for the previous twelve days.

The hopeful high of Sheppard's return and magical intelligence that would lead them to Michael and Teyla crashed like a wounded bird an hour later when Edison stumbled home, covered in blood and dust. Michael's lair had been boobytrapped. The building had come down on the entire team. Radios were out. Anne and Barker mustered a search and rescue force and watched Colonel Carter take yet another batch of Atlantis' finest into the rubble, Vega among them.

As one of only two senior officers left on base, Anne spent the rest of the day in the control room while Barker continued to coordinate resources for the search and rescue. A combat engineer team went through about an hour after Carter. An hour after that, they lost contact with the planet.

Anne chewed through every nail she'd managed to grow past the quick while they waited for trickles of news from the Daedalus. Carter and the other jumpers who had been blocked by Michael's hive on the planet had made it on board. Daedalus was launching a mission to extract Teyla from the hive. And then…nothing, for more than an hour.

You could have cut the tension in the gateroom with a sword, it was so thick. They finally got good news from the Daedalus – Michael's hive was toast! – about ten minutes before the stargate groaned into life and Sheppard's IDC brought a whoop of triumph from Chuck.

"It's Colonel Sheppard! Lowering the shield!" he crowed.

"Tell that medical team to get their asses down here," Anne barked as she turned to race down the steps and watch Sheppard come in personally.

She was at the bottom when the wormhole engaged and Sheppard's team came through. His whole team. Teyla shuffled through first, carrying a whimpering bundle in her arms, held by the elbows in the firm grip of a beaming Ronon. Anne gave a nod of greeting to the happy Satedan. They were followed by a strange man in a long leather coat. Anne stiffened along with the SOs on the deck who drew bead on the stranger who looked a hell of a lot like one of Michael's hybrids.

She was about to give the command to take the man to the ground when Sheppard and McKay walked through. Sheppard waved the SOs back. "It's OK. He's with us. Take him into custody and put him down in the holding cells but…be nice. He helped us get out."

Anne hurried the process along and had the stranger off the deck as fast as she could without being…_not_ nice. By that time, the medics had arrived and were helping Teyla onto a gurney, still cradling the baby. (Anne had finally puzzled out the bundle's strange sounds.) She turned to welcome Sheppard home, then felt the greeting stick in her throat.

McKay stood to one side, holding onto the Colonel's elbow and looking a little panicky. Sheppard was leaning hard on the scientist, his right hand plastered firmly against his side and…_crap_…that look of endurance plastered firmly on his face.

"Medic!" she called and hustled one of them over to the Colonel. The look McKay threw her as the medics surrounded Sheppard was pure relief. McKay and Ronon helped the Colonel up on a second gurney and Anne was shocked to see how pale his face had gone in just the few minutes he'd been on his feet this side of the gate.

"Welcome home, sir," she said before he, too, and again, was whisked off the deck to the infirmary.

"Thanks," he whispered after a deep breath and a hitch. Definitely hurting. She watched him go, shaking her head. She was dying to hear the story on this one, she thought. She stayed on duty until the Daedalus returned several hours later.

After that, life kind of – finally – got normal again. Anne was disappointed as hell when Carter was reassigned off Atlantis. She'd come to admire the woman even more during her short command. But as much as she enjoyed working with the Colonel, Anne would never consider leaving Atlantis that had become the most challenging and rewarding post of her career.

When Sheppard got back on his feet and routine exploration got underway again, Anne dove back into the database to staff her team. Vega eagerly joined back up, but Anne needed someone to replace powderkeg McQuarry. And while she'd gotten along fine with Corrigan, she was still looking for a science member more on the technology side than social sciences.

Dr. Alison Porter's name, a scientist fresh off the Daedalus, practically leaped out of the monitor at her. Anne knocked on Porter's door before the woman had even finished unpacking. Porter agreed to a couple of trial runs. Anne picked Sgt. Mark Axel, a promising SO who had been training for offworld duty in the fourth spot, and earned herself a very grateful, enthusiastic teammate in return.

Unfortunately, the man's enthusiasm got him laid up in rehab for two months after an overzealous sparring session with Ronon Dex, and Anne was back to square one before she'd left it.

She met Dusty Mehra in the commissary. The sergeant was arm wrestling Cpt. Anderson and inciting a full scale betting match on the outcome. Anne intervened when the crowd got rowdy and teams were lining up along branch loyalty. Anne planted herself directly in front of Mehra, behind the sweating Anderson's back, and threw her best "get the hint, kid," look.

Mehra grinned the wickedest grin Anne had ever seen on someone so young and "lost" the match. Anne asked her to join the team on the spot.

"Hey! We're all girls!" Mehra exclaimed on the platform as they waited for Chuck to dial them out for their first mission a week later.

"You just figured that out?" Vega quipped and Porter flashed her soon-to-be-trademarked sweet smile.

"Hadn't really thought about it,"Anne replied. And to be honest, she hadn't. She hadn't gone looking for "girls", specifically. But as she looked down her line and reminded herself as to why each had been chosen, she was quite certain she had the best team on Atlantis.

When the gate kawooshed and they readied themselves to step through, Anne felt a selfish moment of regret that Sheppard was on leave that day. With McKay so ill and rumored unlikely to recover, she certainly didn't begrudge the man and his team for taking time to spend with their friend. But Anne wanted to show _her_ team off. Hopefully, she'd get the chance, soon.

"Move out!" Anne ordered and they stepped forward.

"To infinity, and beyond!" yelled Mehra and dove into the puddle, muzzle first. Vega busted up and jumped in after her.

"Oh, boy," Porter muttered under her breath, but she was grinning.

Anne walked through last, her own grin a mile wide. _Yep_, she thought. _Best team ever_.


End file.
